> emperor; but who, living when Rome had risen to lordship over the

spiritual world, became pope,--the famous Gregory the Great.



In the Forum the young deacon saw that which touched his sympathetic

soul. Here cattle were being sold; there, men. His eyes were specially

attracted by a group of youthful slaves, of aspect such as he had never

seen before. They were bright of complexion, their hair long and golden,

their expression of touching innocence. Their fair faces were strangely

unlike the embrowned complexions to which he had been accustomed, and he

stood looking at them in admiration, while the slave-dealers extolled

their beauty of face and figure.



"From what country do these young men come?" asked Gregory.



"They are English, Angles," answered the dealers.



"Not Angles, but angels," said the deacon, with a feeling of poetic

sentiment, "for they have angel-like faces. From what country come

they?" he repeated.



"They come from Deira," said the merchants.



"De ira" he rejoined, fervently; "ay, plucked from God's ire and

called to Christ's mercy. And what is the name of their king?"



"Ella," was the answer.



"Alleluia shall be sung there!" cried the enthusiastic young monk, his

imagination touched by the significance of these answers. He passed on,

musing on the incident which had deeply stirred his sympathies, and

considering how the light of Christianity could be shed upon the pagan

lands whence these fair strangers came.



It was a striking picture which surrounded that slave-market. From where

the young deacon stood could be seen the capitol of ancient Rome and the

grand proportions of its mighty Coliseum; not far away the temple of

Jupiter Stator displayed its magnificent columns, and other stately

edifices of the imperial city came within the circle of vision. Rome had

ceased to be the mistress of the world, but it was not yet in ruins, and

many of its noble edifices still stood almost in perfection. But

paganism had vanished. The cross of Christ was the dominant symbol. The

march of the warriors of the legions was replaced by long processions

of cowled and solemn monks. The temporal imperialism of Rome had

ceased, the spiritual had begun; instead of armies to bring the world

under the dominion of the sword, that ancient city now sent out its

legions of priests to bring it under the dominion of the cross.



Gregory resolved to be one of the latter. A fair new field for

missionary labor lay in that distant island, peopled by pagans whose

aspect promised to make them noble subjects of Christ's kingdom upon

earth. The enthusiastic youth left Rome to seek Saxon England, moved

thereto not by desire of earthly glory, but of heavenly reward. But this

was not to be. His friends deemed that he was going to death, and begged

the pope to order his return. Gregory was brought back and England

remained pagan.



Years went by. The humble deacon rose to be bishop of Rome and head of

the Christian world. Gregory the Great, men named him, though he styled

himself "Servant of the servants of God," and lived in like humility and

simplicity of style as when he was a poor monk.



The time at length came to which Gregory had looked forward. Ethelbert,

king of Kentish England, married Bertha, daughter of the French king

Charibert, a fervent Christian woman. A few priests came with her to

England, and the king gave them a ruined Christian edifice, the Church

of St. Martin, outside the walls of Canterbury, for their worship. But

it was overshadowed by a pagan temple, and the worship of Odin and Thor

still dominated Saxon England.



Gregory took quick advantage of this opportunity. The fair faces of the

English slaves still appealed to his pitying soul, and he now sent

Augustine, prior of St. Andrew's at Rome, with a band of forty monks as

missionaries to England. It was the year of our Lord 597. The

missionaries landed at the very spot where Hengist the Saxon conqueror

had landed more than a century before. The one had brought the sword to

England, the others brought the cross. King Ethelbert knew of their

coming and had agreed to receive them; but, by the advice of his

priests, who feared conjuration and spells of magic, he gave them

audience in the open air, where such spells have less power. The place

was on the chalk-down above Minster, whence, miles away across the

intervening marshes, one may to-day behold the distant tower of

Canterbury cathedral.



The scene, as pictured to us in the chronicles of the monks, was a

picturesque and inspiring one. The hill selected for the meeting

overlooked the ocean. King Ethelbert, with Queen Bertha by his side,

awaited in state his visitors. Around were grouped the warriors of Kent

and the priests of Odin. Silence reigned, and in the distance the monks

could be seen advancing in solemn procession, singing as they came. He

who came first bore a large silver crucifix. Another carried a banner

with the painted image of Christ. The deep and solemn music, the

venerable and peaceful aspect of the strangers, the solemnity of the

occasion, touched the heart of Ethelbert, already favorably inclined, as

we may believe, to the faith of his loved wife.



Augustine had brought interpreters from Gaul. By their aid he conveyed

to the king the message he had been sent to bring. Ethelbert listened in

silence, the queen in rapt attention, the warriors and priests doubtless

with varied sentiments. The appeal of Augustine at an end, Ethelbert

spoke.



"Your words are fair," he said, "but they are new, and of doubtful

meaning. For myself, I propose to worship still the gods of my fathers.

But you bring peace and good words; you are welcome to my kingdom; while

you stay here you shall have shelter and protection."



His land was a land of plenty, he told them; food, drink, and lodging

should be theirs, and none should do them wrong; England should be their

home while they chose to stay.



With these words the audience ended. Augustine and his monks fell again

into procession, and, with singing of psalms and display of holy

emblems, moved solemnly towards the city of Canterbury, where Bertha's

church awaited them. As they entered the city they sang:



"Turn from this city, O Lord, thine anger and wrath, and turn it from

Thy holy house, for we have sinned." Then Gregory's joyful cry of

"Alleluia! Alleluia!" burst from their devout lips, as they moved into

the first English church.






The work of the "strangers from Rome" proceeded but slowly. Some

converts were made, but Ethelbert held aloof. Fortunately for Augustine,

he had an advocate in the palace, one with near and dear speech in the

king's ear. We cannot doubt that the gentle influence of Queen Bertha

was a leading power in Ethelbert's conversion. A year passed. At its end

the king gave way. On the day of Pentecost he was baptized. Christ had

succeeded Odin and Thor on the throne of the English heart, for the

story of the king's conversion carried his kingdom with it. The men of

Kent, hearing that their king had adopted the new faith, crowded the

banks of the Swale, eager for baptism. The under-kings of Essex and

East-Anglia became Christians. On the succeeding Christmas-day ten

thousand of the people followed the example of their king. The new faith

spread with wonderful rapidity throughout the kingdom of Kent.



When word of this great event reached Pope Gregory at Rome his heart was

filled with joy. He exultingly wrote to a friend that his missionaries

had spread the religion of Christ "in the most remote parts of the

world," and at once appointed Augustine archbishop of Canterbury and

primate of all England, that he might complete the work he had so

promisingly begun. Such is the story of the Christianizing of England as

told in the ancient chronicle of the venerable Bede, the earliest of

English writers.



As yet only Kent had been converted. North of it lay the kingdom of

Northumbria, still a pagan realm. The story of its conversion, as told

by Bede, is of no less interest than that just related. Edwin was its

king, a man of great ability for that early day. His prowess is shown in

a proverb: "A woman with her babe might walk scathless from sea to sea

in Edwin's day." The highways, long made dangerous by outlaw and

ruthless warrior, were now safe avenues of travel; the springs by the

road-side were marked by stakes, while brass cups beside them awaited

the traveller's hand. Edwin ruled over all northern England, as

Ethelbert did over the south. Edinburgh was within his dominions, and

from him it had its name,--Edwin's burgh, the city of Edwin.



Christianity came to this monarch's heart in some such manner as it had

reached that of Ethelbert, through the appealing influence of his wife.

A daughter of King Ethelbert had come to share his throne. She, like

Bertha her mother, was a Christian. With her came the monk Paulinus,

from the church at Canterbury. He was a man of striking aspect,--of tall

and stooping form, slender, aquiline nose, and thin, worn face, round

which fell long black hair. The ardent missionary, aided doubtless by

the secret appeals of the queen, soon produced an influence upon the

intelligent mind of Edwin. The monarch called a council of his wise men,

to talk with them about the new doctrine which had been taught in his

realm. Of what passed at that council we have but one short speech, but

it is one that illuminates it as no other words could have done, a

lesson in prose which is full of the finest spirit of poetry, perhaps

the most picturesque image of human life that has ever been put into

words.



"So seems to me the life of man, O king," said an aged noble, "as a

sparrow's flight through the hall when you are sitting at meat in

winter-tide, with the warm fire lighted on the hearth, while outside all

is storm of rain and snow. The sparrow flies in at one door, and tarries

for a moment in the light and heat of the fire within, and then, flying

forth from the other, vanishes into the wintry darkness whence it came.

So the life of man tarries for a moment in our sight; but of what went

before it, or what is to follow it, we know nothing. If this new

teaching tells us something more certain of these things, let us follow

it."



Such an appeal could not but have a powerful effect upon his hearers.

Those were days when men were more easily moved by sentiment than by

argument. Edwin and his councillors heard with favoring ears. Not last

among them was Coifi, chief priest of the idol-worship, whose ardent

soul was stirred by the words of the old thane.



"None of your people, King Edwin, have worshipped the gods more busily

than I," he said, "yet there are many who have been more favored and are

more fortunate. Were these gods good for anything they would help their

worshippers."



Grasping his spear, the irate priest leaped on his horse, and riding at

full speed towards the temple sacred to the heathen gods, he hurled the

warlike weapon furiously into its precincts.



The lookers-on, nobles and commons alike, beheld his act with awe, in

doubt if the deities of their old worship would not avenge with death

this insult to their fane. Yet all remained silent; no thunders rent the

skies; the desecrating priest sat his horse unharmed. When, then, he

bade them follow him to the neighboring stream, to be baptized in its

waters into the new faith, an eager multitude crowded upon his steps.



The spot where Edwin and his followers were baptized is thus described

by Camden, in his "Description of Great Britain," etc.: "In the Roman

times, not far from its bank upon the little river Foulness (where

Wighton, a small town, but well-stocked with husbandmen, now stands),

there seems to have formerly stood Delgovitia; as it is probable both

from the likeness and the signification of the name. For the British

word Delgwe (or rather Ddelw) signifies the statues or images of the

heathen gods; and in a little village not far off there stood an

idol-temple, which was in very great honor in the Saxon times, and, from

the heathen gods in it, was then called Godmundingham, and now, in the

same sense, Godmanham." It was into this temple that Coifi flung his

desecrating spear, and in this stream that Edwin the king received

Christian baptism.



But Christianity did not win England without a struggle. After the

death of Ethelbert and Edwin, paganism revived and fought hard for the

mastery. The Roman monks lost their energy, and were confined to the

vicinity of Canterbury. Conversion came again, but from the west instead

of the east, from Ireland instead of Rome.



Christianity had been received with enthusiasm in Erin's isle. Less than

half a century after the death of St. Patrick, the first missionary,

flourishing Christian schools existed at Darrow and Armagh, letters and

the arts were cultivated, and missionaries were leaving the shores of

Ireland to carry the faith elsewhere. From the famous monastery which

they founded at Iona, on the west coast of Scotland, came the new

impulse which gave Christianity its fixed footing in England, and

finally drove paganism from Britain's shores. Oswald, of Northumbria,

became the bulwark of the new faith; Penda, of Mercia, the sword of

heathendom; and a long struggle for religion and dominion ensued between

these warlike chiefs. Oswald was slain in battle; Penda led his

conquering host far into the Christian realm; but a new king, Oswi by

name, overthrew Penda and his army in a great defeat, and the worship of

the older gods in England was at an end. But a half-century of struggle

and bloodshed passed before the victory of Christ over Odin was fully

won.