a shadowy caliphate of the Abbasidæ line was now restored for the sake of appearances.
About this time the Coptic Church was disturbed by a controversy concerning the confessional, a glance at which throws some light on its customs and life, and so affords a relief from the dreary succession of quarrels concerning episcopal appointments and fines and exactions that occupies too much of the history. There had grown up a strange custom of confessing to a censer. The censer that used to be swung in connection with the pronunciation of absolution had been taken by itself and placed in the corner of a room, for the penitent to make his confession before it in private without the aid of any priest. There are two ways of regarding this curious practice. It may be looked upon as a protest against the confessional, an effort to get free of the priestly interference with the liberty of the laity of which that institution is the most powerful instrument. Here was an expedient by means of which the penitent could dispense with the priest. Considered in this way the irregularity was indicative of a revolt against sacerdotalism, an anticipation of the great Protestant idea that Luther expounds in his tractate on Christian Liberty—"the priesthood of all Christians." But, in view of the stagnation and superstition of the times in the Eastern Churches, we cannot press this point. The presence of the censer is too suspiciously indicative of a magical element in religion, as though this material object with its ascending smoke were credited with performing the high office of priestly intercession. One grave reason offered for the practice was the notoriously bad character of many of the priests. Meanwhile there was this basis for the superstition of the censer, that in the regular services the incense burnt at the commencement of the liturgy was supposed to be in some mysterious way connected with the remission of sins of the congregation through their private confession. The practice was opposed by Mark the son of Kunbar, a priest who preached earnestly against it. His opponents got him excommunicated on a charge of having dismissed
