And thus, ere now, unbelievers or heretics have dared to speak of portions even of the holy Scriptures, as what they term "vindictive." Considering where such impieties have sought out their objects, and in what kind of results they have sometimes issued, it is a small thing indeed that a Saint of the Church should sustain (under whatever hopeful circumstances of invincible ignorance) such irreverent, that we may not say blasphemous, imputations. Meanwhile, the Church, of course, esteems all her chief lights to be sharers, in their measure, of the prophetic Spirit. And of them who are far less than her burning and shining lights,-of all her ordinary priests, she believes that they are clothed from on high with power to bind as well as to loose; and if so be that in this behaviour of the British Christians there were aught of wilful opposition to Divine grace, (as who shall say that there certainly was not?) it may have been that God would have them a warning to His Church, by inflicting on them some conspicuous chastisement, whereby at once others might be made more fearful of offending, and their own souls ripened for glory by one sharp and critical pang of intermediate suffering.

A sharp and stinging chastisement it was, and a conspicuous example withal. It shall be recounted in the words of St. Bede.

Through effect of a Divine judgment, the prophecy was to the minutest particular brought to pass. For, after these things, Ethelfrid, the valiant king of the Angles, of whom we have already spoken, got together a great army, and made a mighty slaughter of this perfidious people at the city of the Legions, which the Angles call Legacaestir, but the British, more properly, Caerlegion. When, as the battle was about to begin, he saw their priests, who had met together to offer prayers for

their commander, standing apart in a place of safety, he inquired who they might be, and with what object they had assembled there. Now, very many of these priests were attached to Bancor monastery, in which there is related to have been such a number of monks, that, albeit the monastery was divided into seven portions, each portion having its immediate superior; not any one of these portions contained fewer than three hundred men, all of whom were accustomed to live by the labour of their hands. It so happened that a great party of these monks, after a three days' fast, had repaired, along with other persons, to the scene of the afore-mentioned battle with the view of offering prayers. Their protector, who guarded them while engaged in their devotions from the swords of the enemy, was one Brocmail. When king Ethelfrid was made acquainted with the reason of their coming, he cried, ‘Of a truth, since these are praying to their God against us, they are fighting against us, albeit they wear no arms, since they are using against us this weapon of their imprecations.' Accordingly he bade his troops turn their arms in the very outset against these men, and so destroyed, not without great loss on his own side, the remaining forces of this hateful band. It is said that there were killed, in that engagement, of those who came to pray, about twelve hundred men, and that fifty alone were saved by flight. As for Brocmail, he and his party betook themselves to flight at the very first onset of the enemy, and left those whom he was bound to have protected, weak and defenceless, and a ready prey to the sword of the slayer. Thus was fulfilled the presage of the holy bishop Augustine, albeit himself translated to the hea

4 Nefandæ.

venly courts long before. And so these traitors to the Church received the vengeance of temporal death for having despised counsels so profitable to their souls' eternal health."6

We have scarcely ventured to give the full force of the original, through a fear of shocking prejudices, even though by the words of another, and that other a great and famous Catholic historian. Many of those around us can ill brook the language in which Catholics describe the sin of schism. Many, also, are fain to espouse these ancient British Christians as champions of an important principle, and exemplifiers of an advantageous precedent. And of the present biographical sketches, the object is not to foment divisions, but to promote charity. and no otherwise to enforce a side in controversy, than by the impartial display of facts.

On the other hand, the ancient British Church has been the object of unfairly adverse, as well as unfairly eulogistic representations; among which is a charge brought against it, or, at the least, a suspicion raised with respect to it, by the historian Milner, of a tendency to Pelagianism.7 But, indeed, it were derogatory to the work of the great St. German, to suppose that the noxious weeds of that presumptuous heresy had not long since been extirpated from British soil. And, as a fact, St. Augustine's selection of charges against the British Church on the score of merely ceremonial irregu

5 Perfidi.

6 The words of the original are even stronger; "quod oblata sibi perpetuæ salutis consilia spreverunt."

7 The present writer cannot forbear, however, from paying his tribute, such as it may be, of gratitude and respect to this Protestant historian for the religious candour with which he seeks to do justice in the present, as in many other instances, to the Saints of the Church.

larity, must be taken as an acquittal upon the whole subject of doctrine. The only point of charge to create uneasiness on this score, is that which relates to Baptism; but farther inquiry leads the present writer to hope that he was premature in supposing the irregularities which had crept into the British Church to be such as might probably affect the essence of the Sacrament. Cressy throws out a hopeful suggestion, to the effect that they more probably related to some discrepancy from the Catholic Church as to the seasons of administration, or the length of time allowed for the instruction of catechumens.

The Caerleon mentioned in the above extract from St. Bede is not Caerleon upon Usk, but Chester. As to Bancor, the seat of the great British monastery, a kind friend, thoroughly versed in the topography of Wales, and the neighbouring counties, writes to the author in the following words :- "I have no doubt that the place in question is Bangor Monachorum in the hundred of Maelor, a detached portion of Flintshire bordering on Shropshire. Bangor is a parish, lying about four miles from Wrexham, and upon the high road from thence to Whitchurch, close to the river Dee. There are, however, no traces of high antiquity in the place, and the church has been in a great measure rebuilt."

8 Vid. supra, p. 215.

CHAPTER XXII.

ST. AUGUSTINE. -HIS LATTER YEARS.

It was now made plain that St. Augustine and his companions would have to prosecute their missionary labours single-handed. And although the Saint's earthly time was rapidly drawing to its close, those labours could hardly be considered to have as yet more than begun. What has been remarked of other Saints is peculiarly true of St. Augustine of Canterbury. His characteristic work in the Church was shut up in a comparatively brief time. His life, till he had passed middle age, was hidden from the world. His ministry was comprised in little more than ten years, and of these, eventful as were all of them, the three latter would seem to have been the most critical of all. St. Augustine was in the number of those Saints who lived more than half their days to God, and but a few of them only for man, excepting indeed as none can live to God without also living for man. But can we wonder that the lives of the Saints should be miniatures, so to speak, of the life of our Blessed Lord? Of Him also we know but little till He began to be about thirty years of age. His work for men, so far as it was visible, was accomplished in little more than three years, while what may perhaps be called, without irreverence, the awful and determining crisis, was of yet shorter duration.

The circumstances of St. Augustine's later life, with the exception of some few leading facts, are involved in