At so early a period dawns the celebrated hieratic fame of Toledo, which for centuries made it less subject to the sovereign than to the archbishop. Melancius was raised to the bishopric in the year 283, and after him, under the domination of Rome, may be said to have reigned over the Celtic citizens, ten important bishops, whose portraits can be studied in the Sala Capitular of the Cathedral. Gothic rule in Toledo is little else but the story and development of Gothic Christianity. More than on kings and their battles and doings does the town's early fame rest upon those councils of the church in its midst. They send the name of Toledo as far as Rome in a warning note of independence and power. This primitive church had its own rite, its own customs, its emphatically racial way of viewing matters, and for centuries no high-handed effort of Rome could smooth the angles of its stubborn individuality, or Latinise the tone of its worship and faith. It remained for France and French influence to accomplish what Rome had vainly striven to achieve, and it is to be deplored that France should have succeeded in the defacing task. The first of these councils took place in the year 396, and the second in 400, to consider the election of Dictinius to the bishopric of Astorga, one of the sect of Priscilianists. This deliberate battle waged by Toledo against the Priscilianists took place in September, and its minutes are preserved intact in the Toledan Collection. Nineteen bishops assisted at it, and the Bishop of Merida, Patriuno, presided over it, as the oldest present. The meeting took place in the church of Toledo, the bishops seated, and the deacons and congregation admitted, standing. In a long address the president exposed the scandals and vicissitudes of the times, and then discussed in ten different points various details connected with the church. Woman seems to have been the victim of austere episcopal reprobation. She must not presume to chaunt antiphones whether nun or widow, in the absence of the bishop, neither with her confessor nor his attendant. Such communion of the sexes under the banner of religion the Council held as pernicious and a snare. It fulminated against the _frail_ sex, but for whose existence man were a sage and a saint. What a pity the Almighty did not consult the Fathers before casting this fatal and corrupting instrument of misfortune upon the world! However, woman must not complain. To quote one of the delightful and ironical sayings of Renan, the Fathers of the Church increased her power by making her a sin. As a mere woman she is only a human being, like her feeble and fugitive mate. But as a combustible engine requiring the reunion of hoary Fathers from time to time to drown and extinguish her beneath the founts of holy water set to play upon her wickedness and peril, she really becomes something diabolical and magnificent, a creature to inspire alarm and excite curiosity. It is not