St. Gregory reassured them, and inspired them with fresh courage and ordered them to return to the country of the Angles (England). The circumstances were in fact favourable. The three German tribes who had been established in Great Britain for a century and a half had founded seven kingdoms there, the Heptarchy, which formed a species of confederation under the supremacy of one of the kings, to whom they gave the title of Bretwalda. The Bretwalda was at that time Ethelbert, King of Kent, who had espoused Bertha, daughter of Charibert, King of Paris. The French princess was a Catholic; she only consented to her marriage on condition of being allowed to preserve, in the midst of a pagan nation, the free exercise of her religion, and, for this object she had brought with her a bishop named Luidhard. The queen and the bishop were to become powerful auxiliaries in St. Augustine's mission; they prevailed upon Ethelbert to accord an interview to the missionaries. St. Augustine had sent a message to the king, saying that he was a bearer of good news to him. The king replied that he was to remain where he was, in the Isle of Thanet, near the mouth of the Thames, and that he would come himself to confer with him. The conference took place in the open air, as the pagan king feared that the missionaries would make use of witchcraft, if they were in a closed place. Augustine and his companions went in procession to the appointed place, preceded by a cross and a picture representing the image of our Saviour, whilst chanting the Litanies. The king made them sit down, and Augustine was the first to speak. He began by saying to the king that he had come to satisfy the great desire he had to teach him how to reign gloriously, not only during his life, but still more, after his death. "Christ," said he, "has opened with his blood, to those "who believe in him, the gates of a new kingdom. You

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"see, O Prince, a proof of what I have just said, in the "prodigious rapidity with which the good tidings have spread everywhere, and have been welcomed by "nations." Augustine spoke, after that, of St. Gregory, and of the earnest desire that the Pope had had for a long time of announcing these tidings to the Angles, (adding that he would have come himself, if the grave and numerous affairs of the Supreme Pontificate had not kept him in Rome).

Ethelbert asked to have time to reflect before renouncing his ancient belief; but he immediately permitted the missionaries to establish themselves in the town of Durovern, his capital (now Canterbury). The missionaries entered it in procession, according to their custom, and whilst following the standard of the cross, and chanting the psalms, they took possession of this land which was to produce so many saints. At some distance from Durovern, an ancient church was found, which had been deserted ever since the destruction of Christianity by the pagans. There, under its solitary and half ruined vaults, the wife of Ethelbert loved to go to pray; it was there that St. Augustine began to preach. They repaired the ruins, the Divine Office was celebrated afresh, and they baptised the Neophytes. The holiness of these men of God, their frugality, their disinterestedness, and the gift of miracles that God granted to them, moved a great number of idolaters to renounce their errors. Ethelbert himself, struck by the purity of their life, and charmed by the sublimity of their doctrine, was converted, and his example was followed by an innumerable number of his subjects. On Christmas Day, 598, St. Augustine baptised more than ten thousand Angles.

St. Gregory was overcome with joy at this news, and he immediately occupied himself with the organisation of this new-born Church. He raised St. Augustine to the Episcopal dignity, established him as metropolitan

(archbishop), appointed bishoprics, and sent fresh missionaries.

St. Augustine, or Austin, died in 604, the same year as St. Gregory the Great. His work continued, and was completed after his decease. The south of Great Britain had been the first to be evangelised; the Saxon nation received the light a little later. Edwin, King of the Northumbrians, who had espoused a daughter of Ethelbert, set the example to his people. When he felt himself drawn to embrace the Faith, he presented himself, with the Bishop Paulinus, before the General Assembly of the nation, and exposed the motives which induced him to prefer the Christian religion to the worship of idols. Coiffi, high priest of Northumbria, was the first to reply. It was to be expected that prejudice and personal interest would not fail to provide arguments against the adoption of a strange belief, but Coiffi, who had for some time experienced many misfortunes, had learned not to count on the protection of his gods, who recompensed his services so badly; he was then the first to say that the pagan gods could not do anything for their followers, and he declared himself ready to hear the arguments of Paulinus, and to examine his doctrine. Then an old Thane, or Saxon lord, rose up, whose discourse offers a curious example of the eloquence of these people. "O King," cried he, "when "you and your ministers are sitting at a table in the depth of winter, and when a bright fire crackles on the "hearth in the middle of the hall, a sparrow, chased "perhaps by the wind and snow, enters by one door of "the apartment and escapes by the other. During the "moment of his passage he enjoys the heat; when he "is gone he is no more seen. Such is the fate of man: "his life is visible for some years; but that which has "preceded it, or that which is to follow, is hidden from "the sight of mortals. If the new religion offers us

"light on these important subjects, it is indeed worthy "of fixing our attention."

The whole assembly applauded his discourse; they begged Paulinus to explain the principal articles of the Christian Faith, and the king manifested his determination of embracing the doctrine of the missionaries. When some one asked who would dare profane the altars of Odin, Coiffi undertook this perilous enterprise himself. He at once divested himself of all the marks of dignity and put on the clothes of a warrior, and mounted Edwin's favourite charger. Those who were ignorant of the motives of his conduct, accused him of folly; but he braved all their clamours, advanced to the nearest temple, and without fearing the gods of his fathers, he hurled his lance at the sacred edifice. This weapon struck against the opposite wall, and the astonishment of the frightened spectators was great, when they found that, at such a piece of audacity, the heavens looked on in silence, and the sacrilege remained unpunished; they were reassured, and also being encouraged by the exhortations of Coiffi, they entirely burnt the temple and the groves which surrounded it.

The whole of the seventh century passed in the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and the fusion of the customs of the ancient British Church with those of the Roman. The face of England was entirely changed; the pagan Anglo-Saxons were cruel, greedy, and debauched; their religion was conformable to their habits, and their customs were perpetuated by their religion. In their theology they only recognised cowardice as sin, and only revered the virtue of courage; they appeased their gods with the blood of human victims. They had only weak and vague notions of a future life, and they thought that if the soul was destined to survive the body, drinking beer out of the skulls of their enemies would be the greatest reward virtuous men could possibly

have, and that to lead a life of misery and inaction would be the eternal chastisement of the wicked. The ferocity of the pagan Saxons soon yielded to the efforts of the missionaries, and the grossest traits of their origin became polished, by degrees, under the gentle influence of the Gospel. In the midst of the excitement of victory even, they learnt to respect the rights of humanity; death and slavery were no longer the fate of vanquished Britains; the mixture of the two races insensibly operated for good, and the Christian descendants of the idolatrous conquerors were made to forget the disasters of the invasion.*

-HERESIES AND THE COUNCILS.

The Schism of Constantinople.

A

The schism that the Emperor Anastasius supported at Constantinople, reacted upon Rome. At the death of Pope St. Anastasius II. (498) some emissaries of the Emperor of the East caused an anti-pope, named Laurence, to be elected the same day as St. Symmachus (498-514). The troubles which followed were only appeased, thanks to the intervention of Cassiodorus, a Catholic minister of the Arian King of the Ostrogoths, Theodoric. council, which was held at Rome, and at which seventytwo bishops, sixty-seven priests, and five deacons assisted, formed the three following Canons, in order to prevent the return of similar troubles: "1st, If any priest, "deacon, or clerk, during the life of the Pope, and without "his participation, is convicted of having given or pro"mised his suffrage for the Pontificate to any aspirant,

See Rev. John Lingard, the Chronicles of the Anglo-Saxon Church.