“In the year 330 after the birth of our Saviour, Meropius, a merchant of Tyre, having undertaken a commercial voyage to India, landed on the coast of Ethiopia, where he was murdered by the barbarians, and his two sons, Frumentius and Edesius, both devout men, being made prisoners, were carried as slaves before the Emperor. The abilities, the information, and the peaceable demeanour of the brothers soon gained not only their release but high office in the court; and living in the full confidence of the monarch until his decease, and subsequently under the protection of the Queen-mother, the good-will of the entire nation quickly succeeded. The work of conversion was commenced, and proceeding with wonderful rapidity and success, a thriving branch was shortly added to the great Eastern Church. “Bearing the happy tidings, Frumentius appeared in Alexandria, and was received with open arms by the Patriarch Athanasius. Loaded with honours, and consecrated the first bishop of Ethiopia, a relation was thus happily commenced with Egypt, which has remained firm and friendly to the present day, and throughout fifteen centuries has bestowed upon a Coptish priest the high office of Patriarch Abouna (_i.e._ our Father) of the Ethiopic Church. “On his return to the country of his hopes, Frumentius found that the spark of life had spread rapidly throughout the gloomy darkness of the land. Baptism was instituted, deacons and presbyters appointed, churches erected, and a firm foundation laid whereon to establish the Christian religion in Abyssinia. “During the succeeding century, priests and apostles, men of wonderful sanctity, flocked into the Empire from all parts of the East, and miracles the most stupendous are related in the legends of those days. Mountains were removed, and the storms of the angry ocean stilled by the mere application of the staff. The adder and the basilisk glided harmless under foot, and rivers stayed their roaring torrent, that the sandal of the holy man should remain unstained by the flood. Aragáwi raised the dead—the fingers of Likános flamed like tapers of fire—Samuel rode upon his lion; and thus the kingdom of Arwé, the old serpent of Ethiop, was utterly overthrown.”[127]