reared. All was calm, orderly, and majestic, like the raising of the Temple without axe or hammer. The invasions of the world, which devastate, are vehement and tumultuous; those of the Church, which fertilize, are peaceful and sure; even as the Deluge, which destroyed the earth, came down in torrents, while the Spirit who renewed it was silent in His approach, though "mighty in operation." Thus gently, thus "without observation,” because in the power of that Spirit, did the Church gain possession of English ground, and vindicate to herself, almost without men's knowledge, the length and breadth of the land. Here was no violence towards existing prejudices, no contemptuous or intolerant dealing even with popular superstitions; no bigotry, no fanaticism, no false step. Holy enthusiasm there was in abundance; but enthusiasm is too deep to be fitful; it is energetic, not busy. Let us now contract the sphere of our contemplations, and fix them upon the great centre of the picture, in which its whole spirit is as it were embodied and typified-a Missionary Archbishop, with the Catholic Faith as his message, and Miracles as his credentials.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ARCHIEPISCOPAL PROGRESS.

HAD St. Augustine wanted an excuse for resting from his labours, surely he might at this moment have found one without difficulty. The care of the English Church, with which he was now entrusted, was occupation enough, one would have thought, to employ the most active, and responsibility enough to satisfy the most scrupulous. It seemed indeed the natural thing for him to stay quietly at Canterbury, regulate the affairs of his monastery, nominate his suffragans, and delegate his missionary functions to younger and less dignified hands. But so it is, that Saints continually act at variance with our expectations. When we determine in our own minds that they have a call to be busy, they disappoint us by pleasing to be quiet; when we consider it suitable to their dignity that they should rather superintend than work, they force us to the conclusion either that they are regardless of dignity, or that we do not understand what true dignity is.

St. Augustine, at all events, does not appear to have prized the otium cum dignitate; nay, he chose, as we have already observed, a way of life which seems at first sight inconsistent with the post of an archbishop. The truth must be confessed, that Saints differ from common men in not being apt to catch at excuses. does not satisfy them to know that a certain thing is not wrong; they are deterred from taking up with it,

It

by the fact of its being but second-best. And thus it is, that they continually surprise us by their proceedings, as seeming to delight in striking out for themselves new and eccentric paths. And from not understanding them, we go on to criticize them, not always or at once remembering, that "the natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit," and that, in the case of certain given persons, it is on the whole far more likely that such as we should be in the dark, than such as they in the wrong.

Whether, then, there be anything out of the common way in an archbishop turning missionary and traversing the country on foot (as perhaps there is not), at least there is something altogether wonderful and above man in that zeal for Christ which would not suffer this godly prelate to find rest for the sole of his foot in an as yet unconverted land. Nothing would content him but starting off, Metropolitan of all England as he was, without equipage or horse, with no body-guard but the poor, and no arms but the arms of Saints, prayer and watching, to search on the highways and among the hedges for guests to fill the vacant seats at the Lord's marriageboard. Alone, or perhaps with a few attendant monks, and certainly on foot, the holy Archbishop proceeded on his way, and took, as we may conceive, the great Roman road from London to the north of England. His very stature, as we have already observed, had something superhuman about it, and at once distinguished him from the crowds who speedily gathered round his path. He had not gone far before his journey began to assume the appearance of a triumphant Progress; if we may apply that word to the movement of a train in which were no insignia of worldly grandeur, and where the regulations of ceremonial were outstripped by the impulses of zeal

and affection. Never was crowned monarch or laurelled warrior more enthusiastically greeted, more multitudinously followed, than was that humble and mortified archbishop. Like a true apostle as he was, he carried with him neither purse, nor scrip, nor provision for his journey;1 yet lacked he not all necessaries, for his trust was in Him who feedeth the young ravens that call upon Him, and in whose sight His own elect are of more price than many sparrows.

On coming near the city of Eboracum, the Saint was accosted by a man who sat by the wayside begging, and who laboured under the two-fold scourge of blindness

and palsy. The Saint remembered that great Apostle

to whom he was chiefly bound, who said, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee; in the Name of JESUS CHRIST of Nazareth rise up and walk." Why should not that Name work miracles at any time? Why not among ourselves now-a-days? Truly, because we lack the conditions of its power— Catholic faith and Catholic sanctity. But here was no bar to its sovereign efficacy; and accordingly, if we may trust those who have transmitted what they received, the prayer of the Saint was answered, and his Divine commission accredited in the eyes of the unbelievers. The paralytic leapt like a hart, and the eyes of the blind were opened. Now, whether this and other miracles which we shall relate, after those who have gone into their evidence, actually happened as they are recorded, or form rather the illustrations than the instances of the supernatural power unquestionably inherent in all the true Saints of God, on this point we are warranted in the present, if in any case, in being com

1 Mabillon, Acta Sanct. Bened. in vitâ S. Augustini.

paratively little solicitous; for that St. Augustine of Canterbury worked miracles for the conversion of England is acknowledged even by many Protestants; and what precisely those miracles were, is surely a secondary consideration. Meanwhile, it will not be necessary to interrupt the thread of the narrative farther than by saying that if the reader so far forgets that he is occupied upon a portion of ecclesiastical history as to stumble at the marvellous portions of the present biographical sketch, it is hoped he will at least suspend his judgment till a few pages further on, or accept the statements subject to any qualifications which may secure them from the chance of irreverent usage, and him from the risk of that especial blasphemy which consists in slighting the manifestations of God's Holy Spirit ; a sin, one should have thought, denounced by our Blessed Lord in language sufficiently awful to make the possibility of it an unspeakably more formidable alternative than any amount of credulity. Not indeed as if the wanton circulation, and over easy acceptance, of miraculous histories, were an insignificant mischief, seeing that we must not give occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. But, taking our Divine Redeemer's singular commendation of the temper which men call credulous, in connexion with His terrific denunciation of the sin which in its measure is involved in every deliberate trifling with the genuine works of the Spirit, it seems strange indeed that professing Christians should count it a safer thing to scoff at miracles as such, than to enter upon the Lives of the Saints as upon a new world of wonders whose sights speedily conform the habits of vision to their own standard, till at length the eye sees objects before it which are, perhaps, but the reflections of images within. Upon the great principle recommended by Butler, in