Simon, the last Abuna, besides living in adultery with the wife of an Egyptian called Matti, kept several young women with him as concubines; and being detected in having a daughter by one of them, with a view to conceal it, he caused the child to be exposed to be devoured by the hyæna. After living in constant disobedience to God’s law, he joined the crime of rebellion to the repeated breach of every command in the decalogue; and appearing in battle, and excommunicating his sovereign, God (says the manifesto) delivered him into our victorious hands, and he was slain by a common soldier in the very commission of his crime. It must be owned, we cannot have a worse picture of any Christian church than that here given of the bishop’s church of Alexandria. Charity should induce us to hope some exaggeration had crept into it. Yet when we consider that the facts mentioned were all within the space of forty years, and consequently must have been within the knowledge, not only of Socinios, but of many people then alive and at court, we cannot, with the impartiality of an historian, deny our apprehensions, that these charges were but too-well founded. However this may be, neither the king’s example, nor his manifesto, had the effect he desired. A rebel, whom the annals call the son of Gabriel, declared himself against the king in Amhara, just at the time that Socinios, misled by the enemies of Sela Christos, had begun to entertain suspicion of his loyalty, and had deprived him of the government of Gojam and the Agows. Finding, after an examination, there was no person that was qualified to bring this affair to a happy issue but Sela Christos, he replaced him in his government of Gojam, giving him, at the same time, orders to march against the son of Gabriel, into Amhara. This command of the king, Ras Sela Christos soon complied with, and, upon his first appearance in that province, the rebel retired to a high mountain which he made his place of arms, the top producing both provisions and water sufficient to maintain a large garrison. The Ras, seeing that force availed nothing, had recourse to the usual trap these rebels fall into. Weary of confinement on the mountain, sensible that he was by himself too weak to leave it, while such an enemy expected him below, he accepted the friendship of the neighbouring Galla, who offered to join him in such numbers as to enable him to descend from the mountain, and try his fortune in a battle. The treaty was concluded, and the junction no sooner effected, than the faithless Galla, before gained by the Ras, fell upon the son of Gabriel with their clubs, and killed him on the spot, having so mangled his body that scarce a piece was reserved to send to his enemy.