21 THE GOLDEN-MOUTHED ORATOR : CHRYSOSTOM OF BYZANTIUM. FOUR hundred years of Turkish rule in Constantinople have not obliterated the memorials of the supremacy which the Greek race and the Greek faith once held there. The adherents of the Eastern Church outnumber the Mahometans, and, tenacious as they are of the superstitions and traditions bequeathed to them by their fathers, especially of their hatred to the Latins, they are, in many respects, true representatives of the volatile, turbulent, superstitious, and corrupt old Byzantines, who for ages profusely cursed, and were cursed by, the Church of the West. The aspirations of the Greeks, the decadence of their masters, and the symptoms of the approaching dissolution of a vast empire that, at the present moment, has not one element of unity, all seem to point forward to a future-how distant it is hard to say when the cross shall displace the crescent in the city of Constantine, and St. Sophia, which of old resounded with the impassioned tones and thrilling appeals of Chrysostom, be again filled with Christian worshippers. That venerable pile stands as a monument of the overthrow of paganism by Christianity, for it is decorated with porphyry and verde-antique that once adorned the temples of old deities; and again, defaced and Islamised as it has been, it tells that the Koran rose to the ascendant when the light of the Star of Bethlehem had faded from the hearts of those that professed to follow it, and that the sceptre dropped from the grasp of a people that had become enfeebled by luxury and superstition. The degeneracy had early begun. Ere Chrysostom was made Bishop of Constantinople, at the close of the fourth century, the churches of the East had become so debased and corrupted, that men who feared God, and were sick of the voluptuousness and licentiousness that were rampant in great towns, not only among the laity but the clergy, withdrew to monasteries and deserts, to spend their days in penitence and prayer. Constantinople, the metropolis of the empire and the church, led the way, and was hurrying downwards with such accelerated motion, that Chrysostom, with all his piety and eloquence, in vain attempted to arrest its career, and by his efforts at reformation only brought destruction on himself. But we are anticipating, and must, ere we consider his brief career as Bishop of the Byzantine capital, glance at his early life, and the first triumphs of his eloquence in Antioch, where, as a presbyter, he preached for twelve years. Here he was born in the year of Christ 347. His father, Secundus, died when John was but a child, leaving him to the care of his mother. She did not again enter the wedded state, but devoted herself entirely to the training of her boy, who early displayed marks of genius. She was a woman of great piety and judgment, and exercised an important influence over the mind of the future orator. Under her watchful and pious eye, preserved from the dangers and untainted by the vices of youth, he grew up, the simple faith of his childhood strengthening and expanding with his developing powers. Unlike the great Augustine, the mental struggles of his age seem never to have affected him; there are no remarkable epochs in his religious history, and, as far as we know, there was never room for a revolution of mind so marked and decided as that which the renowned Bishop of Hippo relates in his "Confessions." For three years he enjoyed the religious instructions of Meletius, the Bishop of Antioch. After this his early aspirations after eloquence drew him to the school of the distinguished rhetorician Libanius, and so brilliant was his success as a student, that his master being asked which of his pupils would be capable of succeeding him in his |