CHAPTER XII

.

CONVERSION OF ETHELBERT.

"The oracles are dumb, no voice or hideous hum Runs through the archëd roof, in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathéd spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell."

MILTON.

It will be readily supposed that many of the early Saxon chieftains, or kings, for it matters not by which title we call them, had by this time died, and been succeeded by their sons and kinsmen. That many had also perished in the wars with the Britons we have already shown, and now when the Octarchy was established, and the ancient inhabitants of the country were either conquered or driven into one corner of the island, when it might be expected that Peace had at last alighted and taken up her abode in the land, the Saxon sovereigns began to war with each other. We have before shown that when the Saxons went out to battle, they with one consent selected a king--no matter how high might be the rank of those who had sworn to serve under him, they obeyed his commands; when the war was over, each again stepped into his former dignity, and the power thus given for a time to the war-king was at an end. Some such king was acknowledged by the Saxon sovereigns, and he was called the Bretwalda, or king of Britain, though it is not clear that the other sovereigns ever paid him any homage, and the only inference we can draw from the claim set up by Ethelbert, the young king of Kent, is, that it was conferred upon that prince who was the nearest akin to Woden. Something of the kind is shadowed forth in the claim, which is grounded alone on his descent from Hengist. Ella, king of Sussex, appears to have been the first who bore the title of Bretwalda in Britain; he died, and it seems as if some time elapsed before any other of the Saxon kings assumed the title; the next that did was Ceawlin, king of Wessex. Ethelbert of Kent rose up, and disputed the claim. Ceawlin was not a man to be moved from his high estate by the descendant of Hengist, and from this dispute sprang the first civil war between the Saxon kings. Ethelbert was but little more than sixteen, when he so daringly threw defiance in the face of the king of Wessex, and Ceawlin was at that time one of the most powerful of all the Saxon kings, and, after having defeated Ethelbert, he, on the death of Cissa, king of Sussex, annexed that kingdom to his own; nor was there a sovereign throughout the whole Saxon states bold enough to wrest the plunder from his hand. For a youth like Ethelbert to have thus bearded so powerful a king, and to have been the first to commence hostilities, and finally to have succeeded in gaining the envied title, evinces a courage and a perseverance which draw the eye anxiously forward to watch the result of his future career, nor shall we be disappointed in the issue. But, before passing to the most important event in his life, we must detail the circumstances by which it was brought on.

One day, as a monk named Gregory was passing through the market of Rome, looking, like others, on the great variety of treasures which were piled there, and for which nearly every corner of Europe had been ransacked, he was struck by a group of beautiful boys. There was something in their white naked limbs, fair complexions, and light long flowing hair, which at once arrested the eye of the kind-hearted monk. He turned to a keen-eyed merchant who was awaiting a purchaser (and who had probably many other things beside these beautiful boys to sell), and inquired from what country they had been brought? He was answered, Britain. The next question he asked was whether the inhabitants were Christians or Pagans? He was told that they were Pagans. Gregory sighed heavily when he heard this, and, as he fixed his eye with a tender and pitiful look upon these fair and beautiful slaves, he exclaimed: "Oh, grief of griefs! that the author of darkness should lay claim to beings of such fair forms--that there should be so much grace in the countenance, yet none in the soul."

When told that they were of the race of the Angles, he said they were worthily named, for their faces were angelic; and when informed that the province from which they came was called the Deiri, he paused--divided the word, dwelt upon it, then exclaimed, "De-ira Dei (from the wrath of God) they must be torn." But when he further heard that the king of the country from whence they came was named Ella, the beautiful picture which had opened before his imagination, merely conjured up from the ideas created by suggestive sound, was complete, and, in his happy enthusiasm, he exclaimed, "Hallelujah! the praise of God must yet be sung in that land." Imagine the quivering lip and tearful eye which would first show the impression of a kind-hearted man and a scholar, when told that these fair children had been dragged from their homes, and brought from a distant island, far away over the sea, and stood there huddled together, seeking to avoid the merciless eye of the unfeeling merchant, who found them the most troublesome part of the cargo he had brought, for the bales he probably sat upon required no feeding, and as a point of business he had been compelled to keep those young slaves plump and in good order, and doubtless, while showing them to the monk, he made them display themselves to the best advantage. They, struck by the kindness which must have beamed, like a glory, around the countenance of the good monk Gregory, perhaps wished that they might be purchased by so friendly-looking a master, for they would be unable to comprehend a single word he said beyond the names of their country and kings. The quivering lip and tearful eye would soon change into the lighted look of enthusiasm, as, bit by bit, the Pagan island rose before the fancy of the tender-hearted monk, as he saw their beautiful heathen mothers and fairer sisters kneeling before senseless stocks and stones; and oh! what a chill must have come over his kind heart when the pope, whom he entreated to send missionaries into that heathen land, rejected his petition. Still it prevented not good Gregory from purchasing the slaves, who had so deeply interested him. He further clothed and educated them, and would, had he not been prevented, have accompanied them on their return to Britain.

Monk Gregory, at last, became the Roman pontiff; but the splendour by which he was now surrounded altered not his gentle nature; he remembered those beautiful barbarians,--had many a time thought of their island home over the waves, and the fair mothers who looked in vain for their return; and he solicited a monk, to whom he had doubtless before-time confided this wish, which ever seems to have been nearest his heart, to undertake the journey; and Augustin was chosen to fulfil this mission. The monks who were appointed to attend Augustin in his mission had heard such rumours of the ferocity of the Saxons, that they expressed a desire to return to Rome, although they had proceeded some distance on their journey; and they so far gave way to their fears as to prevail upon Augustin to go back and solicit the pope to recall them. The pontiff, however, told them that to abandon an undertaking which they had commenced was more disgraceful than if they had not accepted it; bade them proceed in God's name, appointed Augustin abbot over them, and commanded them to obey him. Further, he gave them letters to the prelates and kings through whose countries they would have to pass.

To the daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks, Ethelbert was married; and although she was a Christian, and he a pagan, it had been no bar to their union; Bertha was to follow her own creed, Ethelbert his: he bowed before Woden, she acknowledged the existence of the true God. Vortigern and Rowena had lived together on the same terms before-time. Augustin arrived in Britain, with his train of fifty monks and interpreters, which the king of the Franks had provided, and landed in the isle of Thanet. How different the intent of his mission to that of the Saxon chiefs who had landed there a century and a half before him! They came to kill, to earn their wages by bloodshed; these came to save, and were neither armed with spear, sword, nor battle-axe; their only shield was the cross of Christ, and on their banner the figure of the Redeemer was borne. They came with no other war-cry than the Litany which they chanted as they moved gravely along. What glorious scenes illustrative of the progress of our religion yet remain to be painted! How easy to picture that ancient procession as it passed: their landing from the ship: their prayer offered up on the beach: the misbelieving Saxons looking on in wonder: some priest of Woden pouring into the ear of a listening chief a disparaging story: the countenances of children looking on with a mixture of fear and wonder: heathen mothers pitying the figure upon the banner, and wondering what he had done to be nailed upon the cross; or perhaps thinking that they had come to solicit aid against those who had been guilty of such inhuman cruelty, and their motherly hearts at once enlisted in favour of the strangers, who came to seek the means of vengeance for such an outrage. Or perhaps they pitied the poor monks who had no arms to defend themselves, and entreated their husbands to assist them. Such fancies would naturally float over their benighted minds, for at what other conclusions could they arrive from what they now saw? Doubtless the ship, when first seen out at sea, would awaken other thoughts, and many an armed figure paced the shore impatiently, and awaited the arrival of the vessel, drawing circles upon the sand with their pointed weapons, to while away the time, as they stood ready to offer up fresh victims on the altar of Odin.

Ethelbert received the tidings of their coming rather coldly, but still not unkindly; he bade them to remain where they were, supplied them with such things as their immediate wants required, and promised, in the meantime, to consider what he would do for them. The bright eyes of Bertha had had their influence; her sweet voice had made an inroad into the stony heart of Ethelbert; but for her beautiful face, he would probably have consigned the whole race of trembling monks to Neiflheim and Hela the terrible, or offered them up as a rich sacrifice to Odin. But even Bertha, great as her power appears to have been over him, could only influence him in their favour by slow degrees; he deliberated for several days before he consented to meet them, and when he did at last agree to a conference, he chose the open air,--still true to his ancient faith, for there he had been taught to believe that all magical influence was powerless. How looked he when he first beheld them?--Perhaps he clung to the fair Christian that stood by his side, and as she pressed his arm, and he felt that she also was of the same faith, the colour mounted his cheek for a moment, and, as it would appear, his heart half reproached him for having treated them so coldly, for he at once kindly commanded the missionaries to sit down. Doubtless the spot chosen for this interview was a circle surrounded with seats of turf, such as the Saxons assembled in, in the early ages, when their witena-gemots were held in the open air. Surrounded with his nobles, the king listened attentively until Augustin had made known the object of his mission. Ethelbert, who was endowed with clear judgment, waited patiently till the abbot had finished, and then answered: "Your promises are fair, but new and uncertain. I cannot abandon the rites which my people have hitherto observed; but as you have come a long way to tell us what you believe to be true, we will not only hold you harmless, but treat you hospitably. Nor will we forbid any one you can convince to join in your faith." Such was the substance of Ethelbert's answer; a more candid or a kinder one never issued from a pagan's lips; but those lips had been breathed on by the prayers of Bertha, and her own rounded roses had kissed their way into his heart; he had found the honey that hung upon them, far sweeter than the richest sacrifice that ever steamed up from the altars of Woden. Ethelbert gave them a church in Canterbury, which was built in the time of the Romans. The British Christians had there bowed to their Maker; it had been Bertha's place of worship, and was probably the only one in the wide county of Kent where prayers to the true God were offered up,--where she herself had many a time, amid hopes and fears, prayed for the day to come which had at last arrived. She, a stranger in a foreign land, far away from the home of her fathers, surrounded by pagan altars and the hideous images of rude idols, had never once despaired, as she leant, like Hope, upon her anchor, with no one near to comfort her, but even while the hymns of Odin rang upon her ear, in the midst of her devotions, had kept her eye fixed upon the star which was mirrored in the troubled waters that washed around the cold anchor, and chilled her naked feet.

In this ancient British church, Augustin and his monks administered the rites and ceremonies of the Christian religion unmolested,--numerous converts were soon made, and baptised, and chief amongst these was king Ethelbert. As a proof of his earnestness and sincerity, the newly converted Saxon sovereign granted the monks permission to repair all the British churches in his kingdom, which had before-time been devoted to Christian worship. The pope also conferred on Augustin the title of archbishop, and sent him over a pall, woven from the purest and whitest lamb's-wool, and chequered with purple crosses, that, when worn over his shoulders, it might remind him of Christ the good Shepherd, and of the crosses and perils he endured in bringing home the lost sheep on his shoulders, and gathering them together in the fold. But vestments for the altar, sacerdotal garments, sacred vessels, and relics of martyrs, were not all that Gregory sent over to Britain; for manuscript Bibles, copies of the Gospels, psalters, and legends of the saints and martyrs, were among the more substantial treasures which the learned pope poured into our island, and some of which our own immortal Alfred translated with his own hand in a later day. The bindings of many of these manuscripts were emblazoned with silver images of our Saviour, and glittering glories of yellow gold, from the centre of which blazed precious stones, so that when uplifted by the priest, who stood high above their heads as he expounded the holy mysteries, their eyes were dazzled by the splendour of those richly bound volumes, and their senses impressed with a solemn reverence, as they looked upon the image of their Redeemer. He also sent over other fellow-labourers, and amongst these were men distinguished for their piety and learning. Gregory was a man endowed with great discernment, possessing also those peculiar qualities which have ever marked the profoundest statesmen; in these essentials he stood high above his archbishop Augustin. The far-seeing pope knew that he had to deal with a race of idolaters, many of whom would change their creed to please their sovereign, or from other interested motives; and, conscious of the purity of his own design and the holiness of his cause, he resolved that there should be nothing startling or forbidding, or much at variance with their ancient customs, in the outward signs and ceremonies of the Christian religion. With a liberality of opinion far outstriding that of the age, he rightly concluded, that whatever was not really evil in itself, it was useless to abolish. Let them retain their sacrifices, argued Gregory; when the idols are removed, and the remembrance of them destroyed, let them slaughter their cattle, sacrifice, and feast upon the offering, and thank God for his great abundance. What mattered it if on saint-days they erected arbours of green branches around the church, feasted, and made merry within them, so long as it was done in remembrance of the saint to whom the building was dedicated? Surely this was better than holding such celebration in honour of senseless idols. Even their pagan temples he would not allow to be hurled down, conscious that if such places had been held sacred while set apart for the worship of graven images of wood or stone, they would be doubly revered when the light of the true gospel broke in glory within those ancient walls.

Pope Gregory had, doubtless, become acquainted with the principal points of their heathen faith, and had concluded that if only rapine and slaughter, and brave but brutal deeds, had been extolled within those walls, and were the sure passports that opened the envied halls of Valhalla, he might safely venture to wrestle with this pagan idol, and overthrow him upon his own ground: that the doctrines which breathed only of peace and goodwill, and love and charity, and holy faith in a dying Redeemer, would still be the same if offered up from the very altars on which Odin himself had stood. It was the substance and the spirit which dawned upon the great intellectual eye of Pope Gregory, and made him tread boldly amongst the broken idols which lay scattered at his feet, where others would have hesitated to have moved. He daringly grafted the true faith upon a heathen stock, well knowing that neither the stem nor the soil would militate against the growth of the goodly fruit with which the branches would on a future day be hung. Gregory would never have entered into that fatal controversy beneath the oak, as Augustin had done, about the celebration of Easter Sunday, and which, if it did not lead to the slaughter of the monks of Bangor, as some have believed, lessened the archbishop in the eyes of the English priests, and caused much dissension and bitter feeling amongst the Saxons. But Ethelbert, Bertha, and Augustin died; and Eadbald became king of Kent.

Eadbald took possession of his father's throne and widow at the same time; for, after the death of Bertha, Ethelbert had married another princess of the same nation as his former wife. The priests raised their voices, and denounced the marriage of Eadbald with his step-mother; he heeded them not, but turned pagan again, and a great portion of his subjects changed their religion with him. Sigebert, the king of Essex, his father's friend, who had become a Christian, also died about this time, and his sons again embraced their old heathen creed, though they still occasionally visited the Christian church. They were one day present while the bishop was administering the Eucharist: "Why dost thou not offer us that white bread which thou art giving to others," said they, "and which thou wert wont to give to our father's sib?" The bishop made answer, that if they would wash in the same font in which their father the king was baptized when he became a Christian, they might partake of the white bread. They replied, that they would not be washed in the fountain, yet they demanded the bread. The bishop refused to give it them, and the heathen chiefs drove the monks out of Essex. Some of them went into Kent, others left Britain for a time; and as the remnant were on the eve of departing, Eadbald, by a strange interposition, again renounced his pagan faith, and intreated the priests to remain behind, promising also to assist them, as his father Ethelbert had before done, in the work of conversion. Whether it was a dream, or the reproaches of his own conscience, or the penance which Laurence had inflicted upon himself, before he again appeared in the presence of Eadbald, or the working of His mighty hand "who moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform," can never be known. Suffice it that the Saxon king saw the "error of his ways" and repented.

##