the omen were adverse, the council was deferred. To explore the fate of an impending battle, they selected a captive of the nation opposing, and appointed a chosen Saxon to fight with him; and they judged of their future victory or defeat by the issue of this duel.

The notion that the celestial luminaries influenced the destinies of the human race, operated powerfully on the Saxon mind. Affairs or enterprises were thought to be undertaken with better chances of success on peculiar days; and the full or new moon was the indication of the auspicious season. Magic also, the favourite delusion of ignorant man, the invention of his pride or malignity, or the resort of his imbecility, prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons. Even one of their kings chose to meet the Christian missionaries in the open air, because he fancied that magical arts had peculiar power within a house. But the most formidable feature of the ancient religion of the Anglo-Saxons was its separation from the pure and benevolent virtues of life, and its indissoluble union with war and violence. It condemned the faithless and the perjured; but it represented their supreme deity as the father of combats and slaughter, because they were said to be his favourite children who fell in the field of battle. To them he assigned the heavenly Valhall and Vingolfa, and promised to salute them after their death as his heroes; a tenet which sanctified all the horrors of war, and connected all the hopes, energies, and passions of humanity, with its continual persecution.

Such is the picture given us by our ablest and most authentic historians of the Anglo-Saxons, who invaded this country in the fifth century, subdued the inhabitants, and permanently took up their residence in it. An interval of slaughter and desolation unavoidably occurred before they established themselves and their new systems in the island. Their desolations, though a terrible scourge to the professors of Christianity, nevertheless tended to remove much of the moral degeneracy we have already alluded to. The introduction of their superstitious rites and ceremonies, and the establishment of their degraded system of idolatrous worship among a people who had been favoured for centuries with the light of the gospel, must have been an awful infliction of the anger of

Heaven upon them for their abuse of the privileges with which they had been favoured. It is said, and perhaps truly, that our Saxon ancestors brought with them a superior domestic and moral character, and the rudiments of new political, juridical, and intellectual blessings-that when they had completed their conquest of the country, they laid the foundation of that national constitution, of that internal polity, of those peculiar customs, of that female modesty, and of that vigour and direction of mind, to which Great Britain owes the social progress which it has since so eminently acquired. I have no wish to controvert the truth of any part of this representation; but I am sure that the establishment of the Saxon superstition on the ruins of Christianity, cannot reasonably be viewed in any other light than that of a signal judgment of Heaven on the ungrateful, degenerate, and infatuated inhabitants, such as the Lord threatened to inflict upon some of the Seven Churches of Asia, and which in due time was brought upon them, by removing their candlestick out of its place, or depriving them of their gospel privileges.

We are not warranted, however, to conclude that the Saxons exterminated all at once the very name and profession of Christianity in the country which they had conquered. At first, indeed, they were inflamed with deadly hatred-murdered the clergy without mercy, and destroyed their places of worship; but in process of time their enmity abated, and they began to make treaties of peace and form alliances with the ancient inhabitants of the country. We are not without evidence that in the interval between the arrival of the Saxons and their conversion to the religion of the church of Rome, Christianity continued to be professed among the Britons, Scots, and Picts, though their church history during this period is very imperfect; either because their clergy in those calamitous times had no opportunities of recording their transactions, or because those records have been lost.

I mentioned, in a former Lecture, the visits of Germanus and others, from Gaul, to oppose the heresy of Pelagius.* After their departure, the churches are said to have been preserved from the contagion of that heresy, and governed with prudence. Two

Lect. xxix.-Vol. I. p. 460, 1.

KING ETHELBert and his QUEEN BIRTHA.

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of their prelates, Dubritius and Пltutus, were distinguished for their learning, zeal, and piety; the former was Bishop of Llandaff, and afterwards Archbishop of Caerleon; he also had the chief direction of two seminaries appropriated to the education of young persons for the service of the church. Iltutus also presided over a famous seminary of learning at a place in Glamorganshire, which, from him, is still called Lantuct, or the church of Iltut. These academies are said to have supplied the churches, both at home and abroad, with well educated ministers, whose names are still on record. Several British Synods, or Councils, were held about this period, for the purpose of regulating civil, as well as ecclesiastical affairs; but the transactions of those assemblies reflect very little credit on the British princes and clergy concerned in them, since they shew the former to have been guilty of the most horrid acts of perfidy and cruelty, and the latter to have been ready enough to accept of liberal donations to the church as the most convincing proofs of penitence.

In the year 570, an event took place which contributed greatly towards disarming the minds of the Saxons of their hostility against the Christians. This was the marriage of Ethelbert, king of Kent, with Birtha, daughter of Cherebert, king of France. She was a Christian princess, and had stipulated in her marriage contract for the free exercise of her religious profession. For this purpose she was allowed the use of a place of worship, without the walls of the city of Canterbury, where Luidhart, a French minister who came over in her retinue, with other ecclesiastics, publicly performed all the rites of Christian worship. By these and other means, many of the Saxons, particularly in Kent, became disarmed of their prejudices, and desirous of being better instructed.

Not long after this, an incident occurred at Rome, which paved the way for an army of missionaries being sent to this country to convert the Saxons, and it is sufficiently interesting to be briefly noticed. It was at that time the practice of Europe to make use of slaves, and even to buy and sell them; and this traffic was carried on in the Imperial city—the metropolis of Christendom. One day as Gregory, who afterwards was raised to the pontifical chair,

Leland: Collect. Vol. II. p. 42.

and surnamed the Great, was passing through the market of Rome, he was struck at seeing the white skins, the flowing locks, and beautiful countenances of some youths who were standing there for sale. Inquiring from what country they were brought, the answer was, from Britain, whose inhabitants were all of that fair complexion. He next inquired whether they were Pagans or Christians?—a proof, not only of his ignorance of the then state of England, but also, that up to that time it had occupied no part of his attention. On learning that they were idolaters, Gregory heaved a deep sigh; exclaiming, "what a pity that such a beauteous frontispiece should possess a mind so void of internal grace!” The name of their nation being mentioned to him to be Angles, his ear caught the verbal coincidence-it reminded him of angels, and the benevolent wish for their improvement darted into his mind, and led him to express his own feelings, and excite those of his auditors, by remarking: "it suits them well-they have angelfaces, and ought to be the co-heirs of the angels in heaven.” When Gregory was further told that the province from which these youths came was named Deira, it struck him as remarkable that it should resemble the words de ira, and this suggested to him that they ought to be plucked from the wrath of God; and when he heard that their king's name was called Ella, the consonancy of its sound with the idea still floating in his mind completed the impression of the whole, and his full enthusiasm burst out: "Halleluiah! the praise of the Creating Deity must be sung in these regions."

This succession of coincidences, though but verbal, affected the mind of Gregory with a permanent impression; and he immediately repaired to the then pope, beseeching him to send some missionaries to convert the English nation, and offered himself for the service. His application was refused; but the project never left his mind, till he was enabled by his own efforts to accomplish it. These things took place in the year 588, and four years afterwards Gregory became pope, and immediately began to execute his philanthropic purpose. He selected a monk named Augustin, as the fittest for the chief of the mission, and added forty other monks of congenial feeling to assist him. They set out on their journey; but the dread of encountering a nation so ferocious as the Saxons

CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS BY AUGUSTIN, ETC.

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had the character of being, added to a total ignorance of their language, overcame both their resolution and their zeal. They stopped, began their return to Rome, and sent Augustin back to solicit Gregory not to insist on their pursuing an enterprise so dangerous and so little likely to be availing.

Gregory prevailed on Augustin to resume the mission, and answered the entreaties of the rest by a short, but impressive letter. He reminded them that it was more disgraceful to abandon an undertaking once begun, than to have at first declined it; — that as the work was good, and would receive the Divine aid, they ought to pursue it. He reminded them of the glory that would recompense their sufferings in another world; and he appointed Augustin their abbot, and commanded their obedience to his directions, that their little community might have an effective governor. He wrote also to the Bishop of Arles, in France, recommending this band of religious adventurers to his friendship and assistance; he addressed letters to other prelates in France to the same purport, and he requested the patronage of the French King to their undertaking.

Thus encouraged, Augustin and his associates sailed from France, A. D. 596, and landed in the isle of Thanet; from thence they despatched one of their interpreters to acquaint King Ethelbert with the news and design of their coming. The Queen, of whom it has already been said that she professed Christianity, was not likely to be inactive on the occasion. After a few days' deliberation, Ethelbert went into the island and appointed a conference to be held in the open air. The missionaries advanced in orderly procession, carrying before them a silver cross, and singing the following hymn, "We beseech thee, O Lord, of thy mercy, let thy wrath and anger be turned away from this city, and from thy holy place; for we have sinned. Hallelujah." The king commanded them to sit down; and to him and his earls they disclosed their mission. Ethelbert answered with a steady and not unfriendly judgment: "Your words and promises are fair, but they are new and uncertain. I cannot, therefore, abandon the rites which, in common with all the nations of the Angles, I have hitherto ob

*Bede, lib. i. cap. 23, p. 59.