With all these accomplishments, he was so affable, compassionate, and humble in his nature, that he never had opportunity of conversing, even with heretics, without leaving them his friends. He was remarkably chearful in his temper; and the most forward always in promoting innocent mirth, of that puerile species which we in England call _fun_, in great request among the young men in Abyssinia, who spend much of their time in this sort of conversation, whether in the city or the camp. Above all, he was a patient, diligent instructor of youth; and the greatest part of his disciples died in the persecution that soon followed, resolutely maintaining the truths of that religion their preceptor first had taught them. In a word, he was the hinge upon which the Catholic religion turned. He had found the seeds of it sown in the country for a hundred years before his time, which had borne little fruit, and was then apparently on the decline. Nineteen years of this most active missionary, and the death of three kings, had advanced it only so far as to be embraced publicly by one of them; after Paez’s death, in six years it fell, though supported most strenuously by a king prodigal of the blood of his subjects in this cause, by a patriarch sent from Rome, and by above 20 very zealous and active missionaries; and, as far as my foresight can carry me, it is so entirely fallen, that, unless by a special miracle of Providence wrought for that purpose, it never will rise again. The king’s renunciation of the Alexandrian faith was followed by a very strong, or rather violent manifesto, and we need not be at a loss to guess whom he employed to draw it up. It begins by asserting the supremacy of the church of Rome, as the see of St Peter; it mentions the three first general councils, which condemned Arius, Macedonius, and Nestorius; next quotes the council of Chalcedon, as the fourth general council, as having justly condemned Dioscurus; but says not a word of the council of Ephesus, which the Abyssinians receive instead of that of Chalcedon; insists largely upon the two natures in Christ; then, leaving the patriarchs of Alexandria, it attacks not the doctrine, but the morals of the Abunas, sent from Alexandria into Abyssinia, accuses the ecclesiastics in general of simony and paying money to the Abuna for their ordination, (a well-founded part of the charge) which I fear continues to this day. The Abuna Marcus was, it is there said, convicted by Socinios, or Melec Segued, of a crime of such turpitude that the name of it should never stain paper. He was degraded and banished to the island of Dek. His successor Christodulus had many concubines. Abuna Petros, who succeeded, took the wife of a poor Egyptian, and lived with her; he then excommunicated his sovereign Jacob, after he had reigned seven years, and died in battle in the actual commission of treason, fighting against the prince.