to the newly formed see. At that time there were about five hundred Catholics in Savannah, with fewer still in Augusta. In 1839 Bishop England announced that there were but eleven priests in the State.
The most salient feature of the work of the Church in Georgia at the present time is the evangelical energy directed towards the conversion of the negroes, a task which is being undertaken by the Society of the African Missions. The population of the State is about equally divided between white and coloured, and of the million negroes not above five hundred are Catholics. There is a mission with church and school and two resident priests in Savannah, with about four hundred Catholic people. In the school 110 children are taught by Franciscan Sisters. In Augusta a new mission has been established with a church and a school with twenty pupils. Among the 30,000 coloured in the city of Augusta there are not above twenty Catholics.
Church Statistics.—In the Diocese of Savannah there are, according to the census of 1908, 23,000 Catholics, 18 secular priests, 41 priests of religious orders, 13 churches with resident priests, 18 missions with churches, 81 stations, and 14 chapels.
Church Educational Facilities.—There are three Catholic colleges in Georgia with 342 students: the College of Marist Fathers at Atlanta, the College of the Sacred Heart at Augusta, and St. Stanislaus Novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Macon. There are ten academies, one seminary for small boys, while twelve parishes in the diocese possess parochial schools in charge of Sisters and Brothers. The State furnishes these schools no financial support.
Church Charitable Institutions.—There are in Georgia 2 Catholic hospitals owned by and in charge of the Sisters of Merey, one of which secures aid from the county for the care of the poor-a per capita assignment. There are 170 orphans cared for at St. Joseph's Orphanage, Washington, in charge of 6 Sisters of St. Joseph; St. Mary's Home for Female Orphans, Savannah, in charge of 7 Sisters of Mercy; and 2 coloured orphanages. In addition to these there is a Home for the Aged, at Savannah, in charge of 10 Little Sisters of the Poor, with 94 inmates.
Religious Polity.—Under the Constitution of the United States, as well as under the State Constitution, full liberty of conscience in matters of religious opinion and worship is granted in Georgia; but it has been held that this does not legalize wilful or profane scoffing, or stand in the way of legislative enactment for the punishment of such acts. It is unlawful to conduct any secular business, not of an imperative nature, on Sunday. There are no specific requirements for the administration of oaths; such may be administered by using the Bible to swear upon, by the uplifted hand, or by affirmation, the form being: "You do solemnly swear in the presence of the ever living God" or "You do sincerely and truly affirm, etc." The sessions of the Legislature are opened with prayer, those of the courts are not. Georgia recognizes as State holidays 1 January and 25 December, but no church Holy Days, as such, are recognized as holidays. The law allows the same privileges to communications made to a priest under the seal of confession as it does to confidential communications made by a client to his counsel, or by a patient to his physician. The statutes contain no provisions making any exception between the rights and privileges of civil or ecclesiastical corporations. The property of the Church in the diocese is held by the bishop and his successors in office.
Excise and Wills.—Georgia from the very beginning seems to have steadily pursued a restrictive policy in the granting of excise privileges. The initial steps in legislation looking towards the prohibition of the sale of liquors were taken in 1808, when the Legislature passed an Act making it unlawful to sell intoxicating drink within one mile of any "meeting-house" or other "places of public worship" during the time "appropriated to such worship", under the penalty of thirty dollars, a fact which has been regarded as "the first attempt at the restriction of the traffic". By 1904 there were 104 prohibition counties out of 134, and Georgia has been a prohibition State since 1 January, 1908.
Every person is entitled to make a will unless labouring under some disability of law arising from want of capacity or want of perfect liberty of action. Children under fourteen years of age cannot make a will. Nor can insane persons. A married woman may make a will of her separate property without her husband's consent. All wills, except such as are nun-cupative, disposing of real or personal property, must be in writing, signed by party making same, or by some other person in his presence and by his direction, and shall be attested and subscribed in presence of testator and three or more competent witnesses. If a subscribing witness is a legatee or devisee under will, witness is competent, but legacy or devise is void. A husband may be a witness to a will by which legacy creating a separate estate is given to his wife, the fact. only going to his credit. No person having a wife or child shall by will devise more than two-thirds of his estate to any charitable, religious, educational, or civil institution to the exclusion of his wife or child; and in all cases a will containing such a devise shall be executed at least ninety days before death of testator or such devise shall be void. A year's support of family takes precedence in wills as a preferred obligation. There is no inheritance tax.
Marriage and Divorce.—The marriage laws of Georgia require parental consent when the contracting male is under twenty-one years and the female under eighteen years, while all marriages are prohibited within the Levitical degrees. Marriages by force, menace, or duress, of white with a negro, or when either party is mentally or physically incapable, or insane, or when there has been fraud in the inception, as well as bigamous marriages, are considered by statute void or voidable. The grounds for divorce are mental and physical incapacity, desertion for three years, felony, cruelty, habitual drunkenness, force, duress, or fraud in obtaining marriage, pregnancy of wife by other than husband at marriage, relationship within the prohibited degrees, and adultery. One year's residence in the State is required before the issuance of a decree of divorce. From 1867 to 1886 the State granted 3959 decrees of divorce; from 1887 to 1906 10.401 were dereed. In 1880 the divorce rate per 100,000 population was 14; in 1900, 26.
White, Historical Collections of Georgia (New York, 1855); Steven, History of Georgia, I (New York, 1847), II (Philadelphia, 1859); Arthur and Carpenter, History of Georgia (Philadelphia, 1852); Evans, Student's History of Georgia (Macon, 1884); England, Works, V (Cleveland, 1908).
Georgius Syncellus (Gr. Γεώργιος ὁ Σύγκελλος);
d. after 810; the author of one of the more important
medieval Byzantine chronicles. Not much is known
of his life. He had lived many years in Palestine as a
monk; under the Patriarch Tarasius (784-806) he
came to Constantinople to fill the important post of
syncellus. The syncellus is the patriarch's private
secretary, generally a bishop, always the most important ecclesiastical person in the capital after the patriarch himself, often the patriarch's successor. But
George did not succeed Tarasius. Instead, when his
patron died he retired to a monastery and there wrote
his chronicle. The only date we know at the end of
his life is 810 (6302 an. mundi), which he mentions
(Dindorf's edition, 389, 20, see below) as the current
year. The chronicle, called by its author, "Extract
of Chronography" ((
Greek characters)), contains
the history of the world from the Creation to the death
of Diocletian (316). It is arranged strictly in order of
