reason for this in Italy, and Spain, and France, as for making it the language of the laws; and in England also there was a reason, which, though different, was not less valid. A common language was necessary for the clergy, who considered themselves as belonging less to the particular country in which they happened individually to be born, or stationed, than to their order, and to Christendom; for in those ages Christendom was regarded as something more than a mere name. No modern language was as yet fixed, or reduced to rules, or regarded as a written tongue: of necessity, therefore, Latin, in which the Western Clergy read the Scriptures, and in which the Fathers of the Western Church had composed their works, and the Councils had issued their decrees, was everywhere retained as the natural and professional language of the ministers of religion. They preached, and catechised, and confessed in the common speech of the country; and that the church service was not verbally intelligible to the congregation was, upon their principles, no inconvenience. It was a sacrifice which was offered to the people, not a service in which they were required to join with the lips, and the understanding, and the heart. They understood its general purport; the spectacle impressed them; and the reverent and awful sense of devotion, which was thus produced, was deemed enough.

But if in this respect there was no real disadvantage in the use of a foreign tongue, in other respects many and most important advantages arose from it. The clergy became of necessity a learned body; and to their humble and patient labours we owe the whole history of the middle ages, and the preservation of those works of antiquity, which for the instruction of all afterages have been preserved. Nor were they the teachers of letters only; from them the ornamental and the useful arts were derived. Church music was introduced at Canterbury, and from thence into the other kingdoms. Churches, which at first, like those at that time existing in Scotland, were constructed of timber, and thatched with reeds, were, in imitation of the continental temples, built with stone, and covered with lead; glass for their windows was introduced; and Church architecture, in the course of a few generations, attained a perfection and a magnificence, which in ancient times have never been surpassed, and

which modern ages, with all their wealth, cannot afford to vie with.

The seed had not fallen among thorns, nor upon a hard and sterile soil; and though some tares were sown with it, the harvests, nevertheless, were for a while abundant. Wherever Christianity has been preached among heathen or barbarous nations, women and old men have been the readiest believers; the former, because their importance in society and their happiness are so materially promoted by its domestic institutions; . . . the latter, because, needing its hopes and consolations, and desiring to pass their latter days in repose, they feel the value of a religion which was announced with Peace on Earth, and which, while its kingdom is delayed, imparts to the mind of every individual by whom it is faithfully received, that peace which passeth all understanding. All ranks received the new religion with enthusiasm. Many Kings, weary of the cares and dangers of royalty, or struck with remorse for the crimes by which they had acquired or abused their rank, abdicated their thrones, and retired into monasteries to pass the remainder of their days in tranquillity or in penance. Widowed Queens were thankful to find a like asylum. The daughters of royal or noble houses, preferring the hopes of a better world to the precarious enjoyments of this, found in the convent comforts and security, which in those turbulent ages were hardly to be obtained elsewhere: and youths of royal blood, whose enterprising tempers might otherwise have contributed to the misery of their own and of the neighbouring states, embraced a religious life, and went forth as missionaries to convert and civilize the barbarians of Germany and of the North. To the servile part of the community the gospel was indeed tidings of great joy: frequently they were emancipated, either in the first fervour of their owner's conversion, or as an act of atonement and meritorious charity at death. The people in the north of England are described as going out in joyful procession to meet the itinerant priest when they knew of his approach, bending to receive his blessing, and crowding to hear his instructions.' The churches were frequented; he who preached at a cross in the open air never wanted an attentive congregation; and the zeal of the clergy, for as yet they were neither corrupted by wealth 1 Beda, l. iii. c. 26. p. 79.

2 Ibid. 1. iv. c. 27. p. 112.

nor tainted by ambition, was rewarded by general respect and love.

They well deserved their popularity. Wherever monasteries were founded marshes were drained, or woods cleared, and wastes brought into cultivation; the means of subsistence were increased by improved agriculture, and by improved horticulture new comforts were added to life. The humblest as well as the highest pursuits were followed in these great and most beneficial establishments. While part of the members were studying the most inscrutable points of theology, and indulging themselves in logical subtleties of psychological research which foster the presumption of the human mind, instead of convincing it of its weakness, ... others were employed in teaching babes and children the rudiments of useful knowledge; others as copyists, limners, carvers, workers in wood, and in stone, and in metal, and in trades and manufactures of every kind which the community required.

The enmity between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons was not diminished by the conversion of the latter nation, because that conversion was not, as among the other northern conquerors, derived from the conquered people. It rather, for a time, aggravated the hostile feeling with which the Britons, or Welsh, as they must now be called, regarded the invaders of their country. The Saxons received Christianity with its latest ceremonial additions and doctrinal corruptions.' The Welsh were possessed of purer faith; and it is said that though they had not scrupled to eat and drink with the Pagan Saxons, they refused to hold this communion with them after they became Christians, on the score of their idolatrous religion. In return, they were regarded as having fallen into schism, during the two centuries which had elapsed since the wreck of Roman civilization in the island. They had, in reality, become more barbarous, because of the un

1 Upon this point Fuller touches with his characteristic felicity. Taking his "farewell of Augustine," this delightful writer says, "he found here a plain religion, (simplicity is the badge of antiquity,) practised by the Britons; living some of them in the contempt, and many more in the ignorance, of worldly vanities. He brought in a religion, spun with a coarser thread, though guarded with a finer trimming; made luscious to the senses with pleasing ceremonies, so that many who could not judge of the goodness were courted with the gaudiness thereof. We are indebted to God his goodness in moving Gregory; Gregory's carefulness in sending Augustine; Augustine's forwardness in preaching here; but above all, let us bless God's exceeding great favour, that that doctrine which Augustine planted here but impure, and his successors made worse with watering, is since, by the happy reformation, cleared and refined to the purity of the scriptures."

successful wars, which, with few intervals, they waged against the now established conquerors, and the almost continual divisions among themselves; while, on the other hand, the Saxons, from the time of their conversion, had been progressive in arts and comforts. The Welsh clergy may not, perhaps, have felt their inferiority to their neighbours in learning; but they were aware of the strength which their order derived from union under one head; and though there is reason to believe that the Britons had been more connected with the Eastern than the Western Church, they acknowledged, at length, the supremacy of the See of Rome, for the sake of its protection; conformed to its ceremonies, and gradually received its corruptions.

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CHAPTER V.

RELIGION OF THE DANES-THEIR CONVERSION.

MANY years had not elapsed after the full establishment of Christianity throughout the island, before the Danes began their invasions, which they continued from time to time, sometimes being defeated, but more frequently with success; till, after a long and dreadful contest, they possessed themselves, partly by treaty, partly by conquest, first of a considerable part of the illunited Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and ultimately of the throne.

The Danes were of the same race as their northern predecessors in England, but they were far more ferocious than those tribes who conquered the country from the Romans and the Britons; and their insatiable appetite for war and carnage was inflamed by a wild and fierce mythology. This mythology was founded on the traditionary belief of their predecessors; but upon that foundation an extraordinary system of fable had been constructed by the Scalds, or poets, who wrought in the old Scandinavian faith a change similar to that which was effected in Jewish theology by the Rabbis, and in the Romish belief by Monks and Friars. Perhaps, like the Bards among the Keltic tribes, the Scalds may have originally belonged to the sacerdotal class. It was their office to record in verse the actions of kings and heroes; no other histories were preserved by these nations; for though they possessed an alphabet, their state of ignorance was such that they scarcely applied it to any other use than the imaginary purposes of magic. These historical poems were recited at public ceremonies and at feasts; they served as war-songs also. This custom, according with other circumstances, made their chiefs beyond all other men ambitious of military renown; and the Scalds were liberally requited with gifts and honours for that portion of fame which it was in their power, and in theirs only, to award. The authority which they derived from their office as historians may not improbably account for the belief that their