CHAPTER I.

Introduction--Work of the Sixteenth Century--Unity and Diversity--Necessity of considering the entire Religious History of England--Establishment of Christianity in Great Britain--Formation of Ecclesiastical Catholicism in the Roman Empire--Spiritual Christianity received by Britain--Slavery and Conversion of Succat--His Mission to Ireland--Anglo-Saxons re-establish Paganism in England--Columba at Iona--Evangelical Teaching--Presbytery and Episcopacy in Great Britain--Continental Missions of the Britons--An Omission.

Those heavenly powers which had lain dormant in the Church since the first ages of Christianity, awoke from their slumber in the sixteenth century, and this awakening called the modern times into existence. The Church was created anew, and from that regeneration have flowed the great developments of literature and science, of morality, liberty, and industry, which at present characterize the nations of Christendom. None of these things would have existed without the Reformation. Whenever society enters upon a new era, it requires the baptism of faith. In the sixteenth century God gave to man this consecration from on high by leading him back from mere outward profession and the mechanism of works to an inward and lively faith.

[Sidenote: UNITY AND DIVERSITY.]

This transformation was not effected without struggles--struggles which presented at first a remarkable unity. On the day of battle one and the same feeling animated every bosom: after the victory they became divided. Unity of faith indeed remained, but the difference of nationalities brought into the Church a diversity of forms. Of this we are about to witness a striking example. The Reformation, which had begun its triumphal march in Germany, Switzerland, France, and several other parts of the continent, was destined to receive new strength by the conversion of a celebrated country, long known as the _Isle of Saints_. This island was to add its banner to the trophy of Protestantism, but that banner preserved its distinctive colours. When England became reformed, a puissant individualism joined its might to the great unity.

If we search for the characteristics of the British Reformation, we shall find that, beyond any other, they were social, national, and truly human. There is no people among whom the Reformation has produced to the same degree that morality and order, that liberty, public spirit, and activity, which are the very essence of a nation's greatness. Just as the papacy has degraded the Spanish peninsula, has the Gospel exalted the British islands. Hence the study upon which we are entering possesses an interest peculiar to itself.

In order that this study may be useful, it should have a character of universality. To confine the history of a people within the space of a few years, or even of a century, would deprive that history of both truth and life. We might indeed have traditions, chronicles, and legends, but there would be no history. History is a wonderful organization, no part of which can be retrenched. To understand the present, we must know the past. Society, like man himself, has its infancy, youth, maturity, and old age. Ancient or Pagan society, which had spent its infancy in the East in the midst of the antihellenic races, had its youth in the animated epoch of the Greeks, its manhood in the stern period of Roman greatness, and its old age under the decline of the empire. Modern society has passed through analogous stages: at the time of the Reformation it attained that of the full-grown man. We shall now proceed to trace the destinies of the Church in England, from the earliest times of Christianity. These long and distant preparations are one of the distinctive characteristics of its reformation.

Before the sixteenth century this Church had passed through two great phases.

The first was that of its formation--the second that of its corruption.

In its formation it was oriento-apostolical.

In its corruption it was successively national-papistical and royal-papistical.

After these two degrees of decline came the last and great phasis of the Reformation.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: GOSPEL CARRIED TO BRITAIN.]

In the second century of the Christian era vessels were frequently sailing to the savage shores of Britain from the ports of Asia Minor, Greece, Alexandria, or the Greek colonies in Gaul. Among the merchants busied in calculating the profits they could make upon the produce of the East with which their ships were laden, would occasionally be found a few pious men from the banks of the Meander or the Hermus, conversing peacefully with one another about the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and rejoicing at the prospect of saving by these glad tidings the pagans towards whom they were steering. It would appear that some British prisoners of war, having learnt to know Christ during their captivity, bore also to their fellow-countrymen the knowledge of this Saviour. It may be, too, that some Christian soldiers, the Corneliuses of those imperial armies whose advanced posts reached the southern parts of Scotland, desirous of more lasting conquests, may have read to the people whom they had subdued, the writings of Matthew, John, and Paul. It is of little consequence to know whether one of these first converts was, according to tradition, a prince named Lucius. It is certain that the tidings of the Son of man, crucified and raised again, under Tiberius, spread through these islands more rapidly than the dominion of the emperors, and that before the end of the second century many churches worshipped Christ beyond the walls of Adrian; in those mountains, forests, and western isles, which for centuries past the Druids had filled with their mysteries and their sacrifices, and on which even the Roman eagles had never stooped.[6] These churches were formed after the eastern type: the Britons would have refused to receive the type of that Rome whose yoke they detested.

[6] Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca Christo vero subdita. (Tertullian contra Judæos, lib. vii) Parts of Britain inaccessible to the Romans were, however, subjected to Christ. This work, from its bearing no traces of Montanism, seems to belong to the first part of Tertullian's life. See also Origen in Lucam, cap. i. homil. 6.

[Sidenote: CULDEES.]

The first thing which the British Christians received from the capital of the empire was persecution. But Diocletian, by striking the disciples of Jesus Christ in Britain only increased their number.[7] Many Christians from the southern part of the island took refuge in Scotland, where they raised their humble roofs, and under the name of _Culdees_ prayed for the salvation of their protectors. When the surrounding pagans saw the holiness of these men of God, they abandoned in great numbers their sacred oaks, their mysterious caverns, and their blood-stained altars, and obeyed the gentle voice of the Gospel. After the death of these pious refugees, their cells were transformed into houses of prayer.[8] In 305, Constantius Chlorus succeeded to the throne of the Cæsars, and put an end to the persecution.

[7] Lactantius, de mortibus persecutorum, cap. xii.

[8] Multi ex Brittonibus Christiani sævitiam Diocletiani timentes ad eos coufugerant........ut vita functorum cellæ in templa commutarentur. (Buchanan, iv. c. xxxv.) Many Christians from Britain, fearing the cruelty of Diocletian, took refuge among the Scots......and the cells in which their holy lives were spent, were changed into churches.

The Christianity which was brought to these people by merchants, soldiers, or missionaries, although not the ecclesiastical catholicism already creeping into life in the Roman empire, was not the primitive evangelism of the apostles. The East and the South could only give to the North of what they possessed. The mere human period had succeeded to the creative and miraculous period of the church. After the extraordinary manifestations of the Holy Ghost, which had produced the apostolic age, the church had been left to the inward power of the word and of the Comforter. But Christians did not generally comprehend the spiritual life to which they were called. God had been pleased to give them a divine religion; and this they gradually assimilated more and more to the religions of human origin. Instead of saying, in the spirit of the gospel, the word of God first, and through it the doctrine and the life--the doctrine and the life, and through them the forms; they said, forms first, and salvation by these forms. They ascribed to bishops a power which belongs only to Holy Scripture. Instead of ministers of the word, they desired to have priests; instead of an inward sacrifice, a sacrifice offered on the altar; and costly temples instead of a living church. They began to seek in men, in ceremonies, and in holy places, what they could find only in the Word and in the lively faith of the children of God. In this manner evangelical religion gave place to catholicism, and by gradual degeneration in after-years catholicism gave birth to popery.

This grievous transformation took place more particularly in the East, in Africa, and in Italy. Britain was at first comparatively exempt. At the very time that the savage Picts and Scots, rushing from their heathen homes, were devastating the country, spreading terror on all sides, and reducing the people to slavery, we discover here and there some humble Christian receiving salvation not by a clerical sacramentalism, but by the work of the Holy Ghost in the heart. At the end of the fourth century we meet with an illustrious example of such conversions.

[Sidenote: SUCCAT.]

On the picturesque banks of the Clyde, not far from Glasgow, in the Christian village of Bonavern, now Kilpatrick, a little boy, of tender heart, lively temperament, and indefatigable activity, passed the earlier days of his life. He was born about the year 372 A.D., of a British family, and was named Succat.[9] His father, Calpurnius, deacon of the church of Bonavern, a simple-hearted pious man, and his mother, Conchessa, sister to the celebrated Martin, archbishop of Tours,[10] and a woman superior to the majority of her sex, had endeavoured to instil into his heart the doctrines of Christianity; but Succat did not understand them. He was fond of pleasure, and delighted to be the leader of his youthful companions. In the midst of his frivolities, he committed a serious fault.

[9] In baptismo haud Patricium sed Succat a parentibus fuisse dictum. (Usser. Brit. Eccl. Antiq. p. 428.) At his baptism he was named by his parents not Patrick but Succat.

[10] Martini Turonum archiepiscopi consanguineam. Ibid.

[Sidenote: EVANGELICAL FAITH.]

His parents having then quitted Scotland and settled in Armorica (Bretagne,) a terrible calamity befell them. One day as Succat was playing near the seashore with two of his sisters, some Irish pirates, commanded by O'Neal, carried them all three off to their boats, and sold them in Ireland to the petty chieftain of some pagan clan. Succat was sent into the fields to keep swine.[11] It was while alone in these solitary pastures, without priest and without temple, that the young slave called to mind the Divine lessons which his pious mother had so often read to him. The fault which he had committed pressed heavily night and day upon his soul: he groaned in heart, and wept. He turned repenting towards that meek Saviour of whom Conchessa had so often spoken; he fell at His knees in that heathen land; and imagined he felt the arms of a father uplifting the prodigal son. Succat was then born from on high, but by an agent so spiritual, so internal, that he knew not "Whence it cometh or whither it goeth." The Gospel was written with the finger of God on the tablets of his heart. "I was sixteen years old," said he, "and knew not the true God; but in that strange land the Lord opened my unbelieving eyes, and, although late, I called my sins to mind, and was converted with my whole heart to the Lord my God, who regarded my low estate, had pity on my youth and ignorance, and consoled me as a father consoles his children."[12]

[11] Cujus porcorum, pastor erat. Usser. Brit. Eccl. Antiq. p. 431.

[12] Et ibi Dominus aperuit sensum incredulitatis meæ, ut vel sero remorarem delicta mea, et ut converterer torto corde ad Dominum Deum meum. Patr. Confess. Usser. 431.

Such words as these from the lips of a swineherd in the green pastures of Ireland set clearly before us the Christianity which in the fourth and fifth centuries converted many souls in the British isles. In after-years, Rome established the dominion of the priest and salvation by forms, independently of the dispositions of the heart; but the primitive religion of these celebrated islands was that living Christianity whose substance is the grace of Jesus Christ, and whose power is the grace of the Holy Ghost. The herdsman from the banks of the Clyde was then undergoing those experiences which so many evangelical Christians in those countries have subsequently undergone. "The love of God increased more and more in me," said he, "with faith and the fear of His name. The Spirit urged me to such a degree that I poured forth as many as a hundred prayers in one day. And even during the night, in the forests and on the mountains where I kept my flock, the rain, and snow, and frost, and sufferings which I endured, excited me to seek after God. At that time, I felt not the indifference which now I feel: the Spirit fermented in my heart."[13] Evangelical faith even then existed in the British islands in the person of this slave, and of some few Christians born again, like him, from on high.

[13] Ut etiam in sylvis et monte manebam, et ante lucem excitabar ad orationem per nivem, per gelu, per pluviam...... quia tunc Spiritus in me fervebat. Patr. Confess. Usser, 432.

Twice a captive, and twice rescued, Succat, after returning to his family, felt an irresistible appeal in his heart. It was his duty to carry the Gospel to those Irish pagans among whom he had found Jesus Christ. His parents and his friends endeavoured in vain to detain him; the same ardent desire pursued him in his dreams. During the silent watches of the night he fancied he heard voices calling to him from the dark forests of Erin: "Come, holy child, and walk once more among us." He awoke in tears, his breast filled with the keenest emotion.[14] He tore himself from the arms of his parents, and rushed forth--not as heretofore with his playfellows, when he would climb the summit of some lofty hill--but with a heart full of charity in Christ. He departed: "It was not done of my own strength," said he; "it was God who overcame all."

[14] Valde compunctus sum corde et sic expergefactus. (Patr. Confess. Usser. 433.) I was vehemently pricked in my heart, and so awoke.

[Sidenote: PATRICK'S MISSION.]

Succat, afterwards known as Saint Patrick, and to which name, as to that of St. Peter and other servants of God, many superstitions have been attached, returned to Ireland, but without visiting Rome, as an historian of the twelfth century has asserted.[15] Ever active, prompt, and ingenious, he collected the pagan tribes in the fields by beat of drum, and then narrated to them in their own tongue the history of the Son of God. Erelong his simple recitals exercised a divine power over their rude hearts, and many souls were converted, not by external sacraments or by the worship of images, but by the preaching of the word of God. The son of a chieftain, whom Patrick calls Benignus, learnt from him to proclaim the Gospel, and was destined to succeed him. The court bard, Dubrach Mac Valubair, no longer sang druidical hymns, but canticles addressed to Jesus Christ. Patrick was not entirely free from the errors of the time; perhaps he believed in pious miracles; but generally speaking we meet with nothing but the Gospel in the earlier days of the British Church. The time no doubt will come when Ireland will again feel the power of the Holy Ghost, which had once converted it by the ministrations of a Scotchman.

[15] Jocelinus, Vita in Acta Sanctorum.

Shortly before the evangelization of Patrick in Ireland, a Briton named Pelagius, having visited Italy, Africa, and Palestine, began to teach a strange doctrine. Desirous of making head against the moral indifference into which most of the Christians in those countries had fallen, and which would appear to have been in strong contrast with the British austerity, he denied the doctrine of original sin, extolled free-will, and maintained that, if man made use of all the powers of his nature, he would attain perfection. We do not find that he taught these opinions in his own country; but from the continent, where he disseminated them, they soon reached Britain. The British churches refused to receive this "perverse doctrine," their historian tells us, "and to blaspheme the grace of Jesus Christ."[16] They do not appear to have held the strict doctrine of Saint Augustine: they believed indeed that man has need of an inward change, and that this the divine power alone can effect; but like the churches of Asia, from which they had sprung, they seem to have conceded something to our natural strength in the work of conversion; and Pelagius, with a good intention it would appear, went still further. However that may be, these churches, strangers to the controversy, were unacquainted with all its subtleties. Two Gaulish bishops, Germanus and Lupus, came to their aid, and those who had been perverted returned into the way of truth.[17]

[16] Verum Britanni cum neque suscipere dogma perversum, gratiam Christi blasphemando nullatenus vellent. Beda. Hist. Angl. lib. i, cap. xvii, et xxi.

[17] Depravati viam correctionis agnoscerent. Beda, Hist. Angl. lib. i. cap. xvii. et xxi.

[Sidenote: SAXON INVASION.]

Shortly after this, events of great importance took place in Great Britain, and the light of faith disappeared in profound night. In 449, Hengist and Horsa, with their Saxon followers, being invited by the wretched inhabitants to aid them against the cruel ravages of the Picts and Scots, soon turned their swords against the people they had come to assist. Christianity was driven back with the Britons into the mountains of Wales and the wild moors of Northumberland and Cornwall. Many British families remained in the midst of the conquerors, but without exercising any religious influence over them. While the conquering races, settled at Paris, Ravenna, or Toledo, gradually laid aside their paganism and savage manners, the barbarous customs of the Saxons prevailed unmoderated throughout the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and in every quarter temples to Thor rose above the churches in which Jesus Christ had been worshipped. Gaul and the south of Europe, which still exhibited to the eyes of the barbarians the last vestiges of Roman grandeur, alone had the power of inspiring some degree of respect in the formidable Germans, and of transforming their faith. From this period, the Greeks and Latins, and even the converted Goths, looked at this island with unutterable dread. The soil, said they, is covered with serpents; the air is thick with deadly exhalations; the souls of the departed are transported thither at midnight from the shores of Gaul. Ferrymen, sons of Erebus and Night, admit these invisible shades into their boats, and listen, with a shudder, to their mysterious whisperings. England, whence light was one day to be shed over the habitable globe, was then the trysting-place of the dead. And yet the Christianity of the British isles was not to be annihilated by these barbarian invasions; it possessed a strength which rendered it capable of energetic resistance.

[Sidenote: COLUMBA.]

In one of the churches formed by Succat's preaching, there arose about two centuries after him a pious man named Columba, son of Feidlimyd, the son of Fergus. Valuing the cross of Christ more highly than the royal blood that flowed in his veins, he resolved to devote himself to the King of heaven. Shall he not repay to the country of Succat what Succat had imparted to his? "I will go," said he; "and preach the word of God in Scotland;"[18] for the word of God and not an ecclesiastical hierarchism was then the converting agency. The grandson of Fergus communicated the zeal which animated him to the hearts of several fellow-christians. They repaired to the seashore, and cutting down the pliant branches of the osier, constructed a frail bark, which they covered with the skins of beasts. In this rude boat they embarked in the year 565, and after being driven to and fro on the ocean, the little missionary band reached the waters of the Hebrides. Columba landed near the barren rocks of Mull, to the south of the basaltic caverns of Staffa, and fixed his abode in a small island, afterwards known as Iona or Icolmkill, "the island of Columba's cell." Some Christian Culdees, driven out by the dissensions of the Picts and Scots, had already found a refuge in the same retired spot. Here the missionaries erected a chapel, whose walls, it is said, still exist among the stately ruins of a later age.[19] Some authors have placed Columba in the first rank after the apostles.[20] True, we do not find in him the faith of a Paul or a John; but he lived as in the sight of God; he mortified the flesh, and slept on the ground with a stone for his pillow. Amid this solemn scenery, and among customs so rude, the form of the missionary, illumined by a light from heaven, shone with love, and manifested the joy and serenity of his heart.[21] Although subject to the same passions as ourselves, he wrestled against his weakness, and would not have one moment lost for the glory of God. He prayed and read, he wrote and taught, he preached and redeemed the time. With indefatigable activity he went from house to house, and from kingdom to kingdom. The king of the Picts was converted, as were also many of his people; precious manuscripts were conveyed to Iona; a school of theology was founded there, in which the word was studied; and many received through faith the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. Erelong a missionary spirit breathed over this ocean rock, so justly named "the light of the western world."

[18] Prædicaturus verbum Dei. Usser. Antiq p. 359.

[19] I visited Iona in 1845 with Dr. Patrick M'Farlan, and saw these ruins. One portion of the building seems to be of primitive architecture.

[20] Nulli post apostolos secundus. (Notker.) Second to none after the apostles.

[21]

Qui de prosapia regali claruit, Sed morum gratia magis emicuit. Usser. Antiq. p. 360.

He was distinguished by his royal descent, but his character rendered him still more illustrious.

[Sidenote: HIS TEACHING.]

The Judaical sacerdotalism which was beginning to extend in the Christian Church found no support in Iona. They had forms, but not to them did they look for life. It was the Holy Ghost, Columba maintained, that made a servant of God. When the youth of Caledonia assembled around the elders on these savage shores, or in their humble chapel, these ministers of the Lord would say to them: "The Holy Scriptures are the only rule of faith.[22] Throw aside all merit of works, and look for salvation to the grace of God alone.[23] Beware of a religion which consists of outward observances: it is better to keep your heart pure before God than to abstain from meats.[24] One alone is your head, Jesus Christ. Bishops and presbyters are equal;[25] they should be the husbands of one wife, and have their children in subjection."[26]

[22] Prolatis Sanctæ Scripturæ testimoniis. (Adomn. 1. i. c. 22.) The testimony of the Holy Scriptures being exhibited.

[23] Bishop Munter, Altbritische Kirche. Stud. und Krit. vi. 745.

[24] Meliores sunt ergo qui non magno opere jejunant, cor intrinsecus nitidum coram Deo sollicite servantes. (Gildas in ejusd. Synod. Append.) Those are better who, though not fasting very particularly, keep diligently before God a heart pure within.

[25] In Hibernia episcopi et presbyteri unum sunt. (Ekkehardi liber. Arx. Geschichte von S. Gall. i. 267.) In Ireland bishops and presbyters are equal.

[26] Patrem habui Calpornium diaconum filium quondam Potiti Presbyteri. Patricii Confessio. Even as late as the twelfth century we meet with married Irish bishops. (Bernard, Vita Malachiæ, cap. x.) My father was Calpurnius son of Potitus once a presbyter.

The sages of Iona knew nothing of transubstantiation or of the withdrawal of the cup in the Lord's Supper, or of auricular confession, or of prayers to the dead, or tapers, or incense; they celebrated Easter on a different day from Rome;[27] synodal assemblies regulated the affairs of the church, and the papal supremacy was unknown.[28] The sun of the Gospel shone upon these wild and distant shores. In after-years, it was the privilege of Great Britain to recover with a purer lustre the same sun and the same Gospel.

[27] In die quidem dominica alia tamen quam dicebat hebdomade celebrabant. Beda, lib. iii. cap. iv.

[28] Augustinus novam religionem docet.....dum ad unius episcopi romani dominatum omnia revocat. (Buchan. lib. v. cap. xxxvi.) Augustine teaches a _new_ religion ... when he reduces all under the dominion of the bishop of Rome alone.

Iona, governed by a simple elder,[29] had become a missionary college. It has been sometimes called a monastery, but the dwelling of the grandson of Fergus in nowise resembled the popish convents. When its youthful inmates desired to spread the knowledge of Jesus Christ, they thought not of going elsewhere in quest of episcopal ordination. Kneeling in the chapel of Icolmkill, they were set apart by the laying on of the hands of the elders: they were called _bishops_, but remained obedient to the _elder_ or presbyter of Iona. They even consecrated other bishops: thus Finan laid hands upon Diuma, bishop of Middlesex. These British Christians attached great importance to the ministry; but not to one form in preference to another. Presbytery and episcopacy were with them, as with the primitive church, almost identical.[30] Somewhat later we find that neither the venerable Bede, nor Lanfranc, nor Anselm--the two last were archbishops of Canterbury--made any objection to the ordination of British bishops by plain presbyters.[31] The religious and moral element that belongs to Christianity still predominated; the sacerdotal element, which characterizes human religions, whether among the Brahmins or elsewhere, was beginning to show itself, but in great Britain at least it held a very subordinate station. Christianity was still a religion and not a caste. They did not require of the servant of God, as a warrant of his capacity, a long list of names succeeding one another like the beads of a rosary; they entertained serious, noble, and holy ideas of the ministry; its authority proceeded wholly from Jesus Christ its head.

[29] Habere autem solet ipsa insula rectorem semper abbatem _presbyterum_ cujus juri et omnis provincia et _ipsi etiam episcopi_, ordine inusitato, debeant esse subjecti, juxta exemplum primi doctoris illius qui non episcopus sed _presbyter_ exstitit et monachus. (Beda, Hist. Eccl. iii. cap. iv.) Moreover it was always the custom to have as governor in that island an abbot who is a presbyter, to whose direction the entire province and also the bishops contrary to the usual method are subject, according to the example of their first teacher, who was not a bishop, but a presbyter and monk.

[30] Idem est ergo presbyter qui episcopus, et antequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent. ... communi presbyterorum concilio Ecclesiæ gubernabantur. Indifferenter de episcopo quasi de presbytero est loquntus (Paulus) .... sciant episcopi se, magis consuetudine quam dispositionis dominicæ veritate, presbyteris esse majores. (Hieronymus ad Titum, i. 5.) A presbyter accordingly is the same as a bishop, and before that by a suggestion of the devil, party strife entered into religion..... the churches were governed by a common council of presbyters. Paul spake without any distinction between bishops and presbyters..... the bishops know that it is to custom rather than to any actual direction of the Lord that they owe their superiority to presbyters.

[31] Bishop Munter makes this remark in his dissertation _On the Ancient British Church_, about the primitive identity of bishops and priests, and episcopal consecration. _Stud. und Krit._ an. 1833.

[Sidenote: CONTINENTAL MISSIONS.]

The missionary fire, which the grandson of Fergus had kindled in a solitary island, soon spread over Great Britain. Not in Iona alone, but at Bangor and other places, the spirit of evangelization burst out. A fondness for travelling had already become a second nature in this people.[32] Men of God, burning with zeal, resolved to carry the evangelical torch to the continent--to the vast wildernesses sprinkled here and there with barbarous and heathen tribes. They did not set forth as antagonists of Rome, for at that epoch there was no place for such antagonism; but Iona and Bangor, less illustrious than Rome in the history of nations, possessed a more lively faith than the city of the Cæsars; and that faith,--unerring sign of the presence of Jesus Christ,--gave those whom it inspired a right to evangelize the world, which Rome could not gainsay.

[32] Natio Scotorum quibus consuetudo peregrinandi jam pæne in naturam conversa est. (Vita S. Galli, Sec. 47.) The nation of the Scots in whom the habit of travelling abroad had already almost become a second nature.

The missionary bishops[33] of Britain accordingly set forth and traversed the Low Countries, Gaul, Switzerland, Germany, and even Italy.[34] The free church of the Scots and Britons did more for the conversion of central Europe than the half-enslaved church of the Romans. These missionaries were not haughty and insolent like the priests of Italy; but supported themselves by the work of their hands. Columbanus (whom we must not confound with Columba),[35] "feeling in his heart the burning of the fire which the Lord had kindled upon earth,"[36] quitted Bangor in 590 with twelve other missionaries, and carried the Gospel to the Burgundians, Franks, and Swiss. He continued to preach it amidst frequent persecutions, left his disciple Gall in Helvetia, and retired to Robbio, where he died, honouring Christian Rome, but placing the church of Jerusalem above it,[37]--exhorting it to beware of corruption, and declaring that the power would remain with it so long only as it retained the true doctrine (_recta ratio_). Thus was Britain faithful in planting the standard of Christ in the heart of Europe. We might almost imagine this unknown people to be a new Israel, and Icolmkill and Bangor to have inherited the virtues of Zion.

[33] They were called _episcopi regionarii_ because they had no settled diocese.

[34] Antiquo tempore, doctissimi solebant magistri de Hibernia Britanniam, Galliam, Italiam venire, et multos per ecclesias Christi fecisse profectus. (Alcuin, Epp. ccxxi.) In ancient times the most learned teachers were accustomed to come from Ireland to Britain, Gaul, and Italy, and to make numerous journeys among the churches of Christ.

[35] Thierry, in his _Hist. de la Conquete de l'Angleterre_, makes Columba and Columbanus one personage. Columba preached the Gospel in Scotland about 560, and died in 597; Columbanus preached among the Burgundians in 600, and died in 615.

[36] Ignitum igne Domini desiderium. Mabillon, Acta, p. 9.

[37] Salva loci dominicæ resurrectionis _singulari prœrogativa_. (Columb. Vita, section 10.) Excepting by its peculiar prerogative the place of the Lord's resurrection.

Yet they should have done more: they should have preached--not only to the continental heathens, to those in the north of Scotland and the distant Ireland, but also to the still pagan Saxons of England. It is true that they made several attempts; but while the Britons considered their conquerors as the enemies of God and man, and shuddered while they pronounced their name,[38] the Saxons refused to be converted by the voice of their slaves. By neglecting this field, the Britons left room for other workmen, and thus it was that England yielded to a foreign power, beneath whose heavy yoke it long groaned in vain.

[38] Nefandi nominis Saxoni Deo hominibusque invisi. (Gildas, De excidio Britanniæ.) The execrable name of Saxon, hateful to God and men.