In these days, when men's ideas of the functions of rulers and governments are being changed—sometimes overnight—and when new programs and new “ideologies” are proclaimed with bewildering suddenness, students are returning with renewed interest, and with new interests, to the investigation of ancient governments. The nature and significance of the official character of the Roman emperor, and of his heir, the Byzantine emperor, has proved a particularly fruitful field of research in recent years, and our ideas in this domain have been transformed and expanded in significant fashion. We have been shown, for example, how the emperor came to be surrounded by a whole galaxy of attributes and virtues — chief among them Bravery, Clemency, Justice, Sense of Duty, Foresight—which made up his official personality. Constantly illustrated on coins and commemorated in inscriptions, these attributes served to remind the people of the Roman Empire what they might expect from their rulers. The emperor came to be looked upon as the father of his people, the source of all good things, and the fount of all wisdom and law.

In 1819 the orthodox Congregationalists of Connecticut suddenly turned from almost complete absorption in the internal affairs of their own little state of “sober habits,” and launched a determined offensive against the Unitarians of Boston and vicinity. This campaign they carried on with vigor through the following seven years. Then they dropped it almost as suddenly as they had taken it up, and became involved in dissension within their own ranks, climaxed by the controversy between Nathaniel W. Taylor of Yale and Bennet Tyler of East Windsor and Hartford. This study sketches the background and some of the events of the campaign against the Unitarians in an attempt to indicate why the Connecticut group were not involved before 1819, why they conducted the campaign as they did, and why they suddenly lost interest in 1826. Since Lyman Beecher, minister at Litchfield, Connecticut, was the outstanding leader of the orthodox during this period, the answers to these questions are to be found largely in a study of his work.

The body of law dealing with discipline, polity, and sacramental administration which has grown up in the history of the church is ordinarily styled Canon Law (jus canonicum), because it is a collection of canons. Canon (derived from the Greek kanon) means a rule, in a material and moral sense. Its original meaning was a straight rod. In apostolic times it signified the truth of Christianity as an authoritative standard of life and a statement of doctrine in general. It is, therefore, easy to understand how the word kanon later came to mean the ecclesiastical legislation which governed the conduct of the faithful. The excellent definition given by Archbishop Cicognani. states that “The Canon Law may be denned as ‘the body of laws made by the lawful ecclesiastical authority for the government of the Church’.”

There are two representatives of the Czech Reformation who are well known: John Hus its inaugurator, and John Amos Comenius, the spiritual leader of its last generation. A long period of two hundred years lay between the martyr death of John Hus in Constance in 1415 and the appearance of Comenius on the stage of history. Those two centuries have been, of course, studied by Czech historians and much concerning them has been written also in German, French, and English. Church history has attracted foreign scholars more than the political or economic development of the lands of the Bohemian crown. And yet, much is to be done even on this subject, many problems are to be elucidated and explained. Hus and Comenius overshadowed by their fame and renown many of their forerunners or followers.