issi^ssvS*** t ; ^j TDTJTTvrr^-crni^Tvr t>x t i^jf PRINCETON, N. J. Shelf. BV 2110 .S67 1880 Smith, Thomas, 1817-1906 Mediaeval missions .^ ^^■^f .^-••.v. ^* l^i'V-;'* "'mi' ,..' .^" «/■ AD VERTISEMENTS. Dr. LUTHARDT'S WORKS. Ih, three handsome croxon %vo Volumes, price 6s. each. ' We do not know any volumes so suitable in these times for young men entering on life, or, let us say, even for the library of a pastor called to deal with such, than the three volumes of this series. We commend the whole of them with the utmost cordial satisfaction. They are altogether quite a specialty in our literature.' — Weekhj Review. APOLOGETIC LECTURES FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. Fifth Edition. By C. E. LUTHARDT, D.D., Leipzig. ' From Dr. Liithardt's exposition even the most learned theologiaus may derive invaluable criticism, and the most acute disputants supply themselves with more trenchant and polished weapons than they have as yet been possessed of.' — BelVs Weekly Messenger. APOLOGETIC LECTURES ON THE SAVING TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. Fourth Editien. ' Dr. Luthardt is a profound scholar, but a very simple teacher, and expresses himself on the gravest matters with the utmost simplicity, clearness, and force.' — Literary World. APOLOGETIC LECTURES ON THE MORAL TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. Second Edition. ' The ground covered by this work is, of course, of considerable extent, and there is scarcely any topic of specifically moral interest now under debate in which the reader will not find some suggestive saying. The volame con- tains, like its predecessors, a truly wealthy apparatus of notes and illustrations.' — English Churchman. A D VER TI8EMENTS. In crown ivo, Eighth Edition, price Is. 6d., THE SUFFERING SAVIOUR; OR, MEDITATIONS ON THE LAST DAYS OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. By F. W. KRUMMACHER, D.D. ' The work bears throup;hout the stamp of an enlightened intellect, under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and of a profound study of the word of God.' — Record. ' The reflections are of a pointed and practical character, and are eminently calculated to inform the mind and improve the heart. To the devout and earnest Christian the volume will be a treasure indeed.' — Wesleyan Times. • BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Juft published.^ Second Edition, in crown 8vo, price 7s. Gd., DAVID, THE KING OF ISRAEL: A PORTRAIT DRAWN FROM BIBLE HISTORY AND THE BOOK OF PSALMS. At the close of two articles reviewing this work, the Christian Observer saj's: ' Our space will not permit us to consider more at large this very inter- esting work, but we cannot do less than cordially commend it to the attention of our readers. It affords such an insight into King David's character as is nowhere else to be met with ; it is therefore most instructive.' In demy 8vo, price 7s. Gd., SERMONS TO THE NATURAL MAN. By WILLIAM G. T. STIEDD, D.D., Author of ' A History of Christian Doctrine,' etc. ' These Sermons are admirably suited to their purpose. Characterized by profound knowledge of divine truth, and presenting the truth in a chaste and attractive style, the sermons carry in then- tone the accents of the solemn feeling of responsibility to which they owe their origin.'— Weekly Review. In One Volume, crown 8vo, pirice 5s., Third Edition, LIGHT FROM THE CROSS: SERMONS ON THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. Translated from the German of A. THOLUCK, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Halle. ' With no ordinary confideuce and pleasure wo comniciul these most noble, solemnizing, and touching discourses.' — British and Foreign Evangelical Review. DUFF MISSIONARY LECTURES. jFirst Series. PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON, .... HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN ROBERTSON AND CO. NEW YORK SCKIBNER AND WELFORD. ©uff JHtssionara iLcrtures— JFirst .Series, MEDIAEVAL MISSIONS. THOMAS ^SMITH, D.D,, EDINBURGH. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLAEK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 1880. TO The Right Honourable Lord Polwakth, The Rev. William Lindsay Alexander, D.D., William Pikie Duff, Esq., The Rev. Robert Gordon, The Rev. John Marshall Lang, D.D., Hugh M'Lkod Matheson, Esq., Duncan MacNeill, Esq., The Rev. Andrew Thomson, D.D., — Trustees of the ' Duff Missionary Lectureship ; ' and to Henry Tod, Esq., W.S., A gent for the Trust, — THESE LECTURES ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. PREFACE. THE Duff Missionary Lectureship has been instituted under the provisions of the will of the late Dr. Alexander Duff. In arranging for its founda- tion, his son has complied with the dying instructions of his father, deviating from these instructions only to the extent of designating the lectureship by his father's name, — a deviation which, I venture to think, will be universally approved. In terms of a trust-deed executed by i\Ir. Duff, a course of lectures, not fewer than six in number, ' On some department of Foreign Missions or cognate subjects,' is to be delivered once in every four years, each lecturer to give only one course. They are to be delivered in Edinburgh and repeated in Glasgow, or delivered in Glasgow and repeated in Edinburgh, or delivered and repeated in such other places as the trustees may direct. The lectures are then to be published, and copies are to be presented to certain libraries in this country, continental Europe, America, India, Africa, and Australia. The trustees are men belonging to different denominations, and tlie lecturer viii Preface. is to be ' a minister, professor, or godly layman of any Evangelical Church.' In the introduction to the first lecture I have sufficiently explained the circumstances in which I was appointed as the first holder of the lectureship, as having been long associated with Dr. Duff in mission- work in Bengal, and afterwards in the home-manage- ment of the missions of the Free Church of Scotland. While I venture to entertain a humble hope that the present volume may communicate to its readers a considerable portion of information, and may stimulate their interest in the great work of missions, I desire that it may be regarded also as a tribute to the memory of one for whom, during forty years of uninterrupted friendship and constant intercourse, I cherished feelings of tenderest affection, while I shared with the universal church the sentiment of admiration of his gifts and veneration of his graces. I have not thought it necessary to make frequent references to the sources from which I have derived my information. These have been numerous, — English, French, German, Latin, and Greek, — and I have endeavoured to make honest use of them. Without enumerating them, I should state that, next to the general church - historians, Baronius, Schrockh, and Neander, I have been specially indebted to Mr. Maclear {History of Missions in the Middle Ages, London, 1860) both for direct information and for Preface. ix references to original authorities. Besides makincf several quotations from his pages, I have occasionally followed his narrative with little alteration, I should also acknowledge my obligations to Ebrard {Bie Iro- Scliottische Missionsldrche), to Hue {Missions in China, Tartary, and Thibet), and to Germanu [Die Kirche dcr Thomas- Christen). The composition of these lectures has been laborious ; but it lias been a labour of love, and of ever-growing interest in the subject. My prayer is that their perusal may be not less productive of interest in, and love to, the cause which they are designed to promote. T. S. Edinburgh, Xnt May 1880. ,f^ PHIITGETOIT- N^T, MEDIAEVAL MISSIONS. LECTUEE I. T" AM somewhat painfully aware that I owe my -■- appointment to this lectureship, not to any special qualifications that I possess for discharging the im- portant duties devolving on the lecturer, but rather to the very special relation in which I stood for forty years towards the noble man whose name it bears, and the very close friendship which subsisted between us during that long time. The consciousness of tliis has made me very anxious, both about the choice of a subject, and about the treatment of it. I have been deeply concerned that the object might be in some degree promoted which lay so near the heart of my beloved friend, and to the furtherance of which so large a portion of his life and of his stupendous energies was devoted, — the object of exciting and keeping alive in the hearts of our people an intelligent interest in the spread all over the world of the know- ledge of the glorious gospel of God's grace, and the direction of that interest into practical channels. After much consideration, I came to the conclusion A 2 Medicsval Missions. that, with the blessing of God, this object might be in some measure effected by the delivering and subsequent publication, in terms of the deed by wliicli the lecture- ship has been instituted, of a short course of lectures of a historical or biographical character. It appeared to me that such a course — if not in itself preferable for the end in view to one which should bring forward more prominently and more formally the duty incum- bent on all Christians, to labour and pray constantly and fervently that the gospel may be accepted by all the tribes of earth — was at all events preferable for me. I was satisfied that, if I attempted the produc- tion of a course of lectures of the latter character, I should be able to do little more than introduce and repeat such hortatory matter as is familiar to all our people, but wdiich it would require the sanctified genius and burning eloquence of him whose name is associated with the lectureship to render either in- structive or practically effective. I doubt not that many of my successors will choose such themes ; and such as may be led to do so have my hearty suffrage, by anticipation, — if that have any value, — to the pro- priety of tlieir choice, which, indeed, I should have made for myself, but for conscious incompetency to handle such a theme in any worthy maimer. I am still more confident now than I was before the pre- paration of the lectures began, that in this matter my judgment was correct, and that a historical subject was LECT. I.] Introductory. 3 better, at all events for me, than any other that I could have attempted to handle. At the same time, I should like to state at the outset that the great object which I have in view is to produce or deepen a conviction on the minds of my hearers of the greatness and grandeur of the mission work, — to show how intimately its prosecution by the church is bound up with the glory of her exalted Head, — how necessarily those who are negligent of it cut themselves off from sympathy with the heart which beats in the human breast of that Lord who is at the right hand of the Majesty on high, expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. If in this object I fail, my failure is complete. The conclusion being reached, that the subject of the lectures should be historical, it next became necessary to select some period or some department of missionary history, to resolve to treat of the missions undertaken by some particular churches or societies, or of the missions conducted in some particular country or countries, or of those carried on, wlieresoever and by whomsoever, in some particular period of time. Each of these methods appeared to have advantages and disadvantages peculiar to itself, as compared with the others. I need not detail the considerations which led me, on the whole, to give the preference to the last, and to adopt a chronological, rather than either an ecclesiastical or a geographical division. This second step having been taken, it remained 4 • MedicBval Missions. to decide upon the particular period whose missions should be reviewed. After no little deliberation I chose the long period which is commonly designated as the Middle Ages, and announced that the subject of the lectures was to be Medieval Missions. I was well aware that the subject is far too large to be exhaustively treated within the limits of so short a course of lectures ; and I am, if possible, more abun- dantly aware of this now than I was then. But I have a belief that the object of such a course of lectures as the present — and, indeed, of any course of lectures — should not be the exhaustive treatment of a subject, but rather the exciting of such an interest in it as may stimulate to further investigation, and the furnishing of hints and helps for the prosecution of such investigation. I was aware also, and am more abundantly aware now, that to carry out this design in any way not absolutely discreditable, would impose on me an amount of laborious research far greater than what might have sufficed for the adequate treatment of a non-historical theme, or for the adequate presenta- tion of the missions of some other historical period. But the very fact that such laborious research is necessary, inasmuch as it is due to the circumstance that information regarding this particular period is not very easily collected, suggested that the labour bestowed upon it would not be bestowed in vain. I regret that I should have been obliged to occupy LECT. I.] Introductory. 5 so much time with these preliminary explanations, but they seemed necessary at the outset. The terms Middle Ages and Mediceval are, of course, somewhat indefinite, and have, in point of fact, been variously applied. A very strict determination of the beginning and the end of the period to be understood as comprehended under them is not of much conse- quence, and is indeed, from the nature of the case, scarcely possible, as every determination of them must necessarily involve the introduction of some more or less arbitrary element. As Protestants, we consider the ' darkness ' specially characteristic of these ages, and which warrants the designation frequently applied to them, to have been dispelled by the light of the glorious Eeformation early in the sixteenth century. Further, it is at all events convenient, while it is not out of harmony with historical realities, to consider the middle of these Middle Ages to have been about A.D. 1000. The termination of our line and its middle point being thus ascertained, its other extremity deter- mines itself; for, if a.d. 1000 is the middle of a period which ended in a.d. 1500, of course it began with A.D. 500. This somewhat rude or rough-and-ready method of fixing the beginning of the mediseval period gives a result very happily in accordance with that to which we should have been led, and to which others have been led, by considerations connected with the 6 MedicBval Missions. events both of civil and ecclesiastical history. The continuity of history never is, and indeed never can be, absokitely broken. Yet there are events which so dominate and modify all that follow, that they must be regarded as introducing new eras. If there ever were such an event in European history, it was the irrup- tion of the barbarian tribes into Europe, the overthrow of the Eoman Empire, and the substitution, for the frosty stillness and stagnancy of Eoman supremacy, of the infinite fluctuations and complications of European interests, and European wars, and European politics. Now, although this irruption had begun before the beginning of the sixth century, and although it was not complete then, yet just about that very time these tribes began to be so consolidated and organized, that they might be regarded thenceforth as virtually the possessors and the rulers of those lands of which till then they had been only invaders, and ravagers, and plunderers. I need scarcely say that I shall not hold myself absolutely bound by the limits which I have thus, somewhat arbitrarily, assigned to my period ; for it follows of necessity from what I have alluded to as the continuity of history, that it woidd be impossible to trace its course satisfactorily, or even to make its facts in- telligible, without occasionally tracing back events which have occurred witliin a given period, and showing their connection with and dependence upon other events which have occurred in an earlier period. LECT. I.] Division of the Course. 7 This millennium, then, being our prescribed field, it is manifest that it must be in some way divided, if we are to have any hope of dealing with it satisfactorily. And, happily, I find that it very conveniently divides itself; and that partly on geographical, and partly on ecclesiastical and chronological grounds. In the first place, it is so obvious that it cannot well escape the notice of any one, that the world, throughout the whole course of its history, has been virtually divided into two great sections, which may be designated as the East and the West, although the dividing line has been neither straight nor unvarying. Its reality and its permanence are established by the fact of its recur- rence after every displacement. In ancient times it was broken by the Persian invasion of Greece, and the Asiatic expedition of Alexander. But Xerxes never established an Asiatic power in Europe, and the great empire of Alexander speedily fell apart, and was dis- solved into its Western and Eastern components. In times nearer to those with which we have to do, it was rudely disturbed by the transference of the seat of empire from Eome to Byzantium, by Constantino, in the fourth century. The emperors of the West thereby became virtually Eastern monarchs, and too sadly realized the ideas that are generally associated with that designation. The people of the West were thereby subjected to innumerable influences of an essentially oriental character. Somewhat of the manner of thougjht 8 MedicBval Missions. and manner of life that had before been regarded as distinctively Western was introduced into the East, while the East exercised a still more potent influence upon the West. But the fusion of the two sections was never effected ; the dividing line was never obliterated ; and ere long the disunion became more absolute than it had been before the union ; and so it remains till this day. This great fact, then, suggests the primary division of our subject. Of the seven lectures of which the course will consist, I purpose to occupy five with sketches of missions in the West, that is, in Europe and the western side of Northern Africa ; and the other two with sketches of those in the East, that is, in Asia and the eastern side of Northern Africa. Leaving ourselves free, then, to interject references to other matters, it is proposed, first of all, to give some details as to the spread of the gospel in Europe in immediate connection with a very important event which occurred just at the beginning of our allotted period, the conversion of Clovis. Then we shall come to our own beloved land, and give some account of the work of God in it in the early portion of the Middle Ages, and trace the influence of our countrymen, as for several centuries the greatest missionaries in Christendom, in the spread of the gospel on the European continent. When we come to about the middle of our period, our attention will be chiefly turned to the more northern and eastern parts of LECT. I,] Division of the Cowse. • 9 Europe, Denmark, Eussia, and Poland ; and, finally, we shall be called to notice the missions to the Mohammedans in Spain and North-Western Africa, So much for the division of the first section of our course. The subdivision of the second main division will be stated afterwards. The time which elapsed between the conversion of Constantine and the middle of the fifth century had sufficed to make Europe outwardly and nominally Christian. It had sufficed also to complete the decline of the once mighty Eoman Empire, and to take from the orientalized emperors of Constantinople all but a shadow of the power which had once belonged to the emperors of Rome. Although they boasted themselves to be, and were nominally acknowledged as, the successors of these emperors, yet the empire over which they reigned and did not rule was in no sense the empire of the Csesars. The decadence of the Eoman State began with the extinction of that stern republican virtue, which, with all its defects, had im- parted a might and a power to the people, and made them the conquerors of the world. It was accelerated by the ferocious and beastly vices of some of the heathen emperors, and was not arrested by the weak- lings who, bearing the Christian name, substituted profligacy, sensuality, and vice in some instances, hypocrisy, and faithlessness, and base favouritism in I o Mediceval Missions. almost all, for that stern pride, if it were nothing higher, which made it the first article of a Eoman noble's creed to fear nothing but a lie. This it was that called down the just vengeance of Heaven ; and the only wonder is that that vengeance slumbered so long. One of the principal means which Divine Provi- dence employed in the infliction of this vengeance was the incursion of the barbarian tribes into Europe. I confess that I have never been able very clearly to understand whence these invaders came in such immense numbers. The countries which are usually mentioned as their previous abode could not, as it appears to me, have maintained so vast a population, even if they had been cultivated in a way in which we may be sure that these tribes did not, and could not, cultivate them. But be this as it may, the fact is unquestionable, that from lands outside the boundaries of the Western Empire band after band poured down upon the European territories, and spread themselves like locust-flights over the various provinces. Never in the history of mankind has there been a similar instance of people so numerous, so far removed and so diverse from each other, being simultaneously inspired with a common feeling, and instigated to similar action. To deny or to doubt that the finger of God \vas in it, and that these tribes, albeit they knew it not, were the unconscious instruments of the Divine vengeance, were, in my judgment, to contravene the first princij^le of LKCT. I.] Iri'nption of Barbarians. 1 1 human belief, that every effect must have an adequate cause. Any detail as to this strange irruption were manifestly outside my province. It is enough to say that, speaking broadly, these nations were at the open- ing of the sixth century the virtual rulers of Europe. They had incorporated with themselves so many of the previous inhabitants as they had not exterminated. The proportion of incorporation to extermination would, of course, vary in the different countries; but I suspect that in general the former was the rule and the latter the exception. The people did not generally offer any very strenuous opposition to their transference from the yoke of Eorae to another yoke, which could not well be heavier, and which might haply prove less galling and intolerable. By the conquest of Eonian garrisons, and in some cases by bribery of degenerate Eoman commanders, by receiving into their ranks those mercenaries to whom it was a matter of indifference whether they served Eome or Eome's enemies, they had everywhere reduced the imperial power to a nullity. Some of these invaders had been brought under the influence of the gospel, to a certain extent, before their arrival in Europe, — notably the Gotlis, whose previous history is better known than that of some of the others, who had been converted to Arianism, whose language had been reduced to writing, and had the Bible translated into it by their apostle Ulfilas, a noble man, who ranks high in the 1 2 MedicBval Missions. roll of the great benefactors of mankind. Others, who had come as heathens, had embraced the religion of those whom they had conquered and incorporated with themselves. This, then, was the state of matters, as stated by Gibbon, at the close of the fifth century. ' Christianity was embraced by almost all the bar- barians who established their kingdoms on the ruins of the Western Empire ; the Eurgundians in Gaul, the Suevi in Spain, the Vandals in Africa, the Ostrogoths in Pannonia, and the various bands of mercenaries that raised Odoacer to the throne of Italy. The Franks and the Saxons still persevered in the errors of paganism.' To bring these Franks and Saxons to the acceptance of the gospel, and to bring the other nations to the acknowledgment of Christ as a divine Saviour, was the mission work which the church of the sixth century found ready to her hand to do. At the head of one of the great divisions of these Franks was Clovis, a man of no ordinary character, a thorough type of the virtues and the vices of the barbarian. Born and brought up in a portion of Gaul which had been more thoroughly Eomanized than some others, he came into contact with the Christianity which was professed there. While it does not appear that he ever seriously contemplated either the duty or the privilege of a personal acceptance of the gospel, it is evident that he had a great respect for the clergy, whom, however, he probably regarded with superstitious LECT. I.] Clovis. 13 rather than religious reverence. An instance of this is furnished by an incident in his early history, which is often related for the purpose of illustrating the relation which subsisted between the chief and the clansmen of these tribes. It is variously told, but the variations do not affect the object which I have in view in citing it. At a very early period of his career he and his troops took and plundered the city of Eheims (or, according to another account, Soissons). The bishop came to him and begged that he would give back some piece of church furniture which formed part of the spoil. As this appears to have been of a fragile nature, it was probably a glass vase, Clovis promised that it should be restored ; and when the spoil came to be divided, he begged as a personal favour of his soldiers, that it should be given over to him. As it was probably of small intrinsic value, there seemed to be a general acquiescence that his request should be granted. But just as he was about to remove it, a trooper sprang forward, and, in protest against such violation of the usages of the tribe, shivered it to pieces with a blow of his battle-axe. Clovis sub- mitted in silence; but at the next review of the troops, perceiving, or affecting to perceive, some disorder in the bearing or accoutrements of the same trooper, he snatched his axe from him, according to one account, or, according to another, he drew his own sword, and with the one or the other weapon slew the man, I 14 Mediceval Missions. would make one or two remarks upon this story. First of all, I believe it to be substantially true ; for, coming to us through the channel by which it reaches us, it would certainly have had another complexion if it had been a mere fiction. The holy bishop would have been brought upon the scene ; he would have breathed upon the fragments of the vase, and re-united them so that no sign of the fracture could be perceived ; then the sturdy soldier would have fallen at his feet, and entreated to be washed in the laver of reojenera- tion I From the narrative itself I derive two con- clusions : — First, That a soldier in his twentieth year, flushed with victory and elated with the glory of conquest, who restrained his rage when he was defied and insulted at the head of his army, was no ordinary man, but an almost unique instance of that self- constraint which is one of the highest forms of human virtue. Secondly, That even at this early period of his life Clovis was on terms of intimate friendship with the Christian clergy; that he must even then have had some knowledge of the Christian system ; and there- fore that his subsequent conversion was not, as it has been sometimes represented to have been, the result of sudden and ignorant impulse. In 49 o, Clovis married Clotilda, a niece of the King of the Burgundians. Although her family were Arians, she was herself a zealous adherent of the orthodox faith. Her character bears the stain of LECT. 1.] Clovis and Clotilda. \ 5 havin<^ induced her husband to take a terrible and perfidious revenge on her uncle for the murder of her father and mother ; yet the whole of her history im- presses us with the idea that she was a noble woman, a zealous Christian according to her light, which was probably none of the brightest ; a helpmeet for her husband, who was evidently won, by the good con- versation of his wife, at least to think well of the God whom she worshipped, the Saviour whom she loved. On the occasion of the birth of their first son she was greatly exercised in her spirit, and was very urgent with her husband that he should embrace the gospel, in order that her infant prince might be baptized. She represented to him that the gods of wood and stone could neither help themselves nor others ; that they were human attributes that were ascribed to them, and very inglorious deeds. Eather, she added, should we w^orship Him who has created all things, and has so beneficently contrived them for the use of man. Her husband only answered, ' All is brought to pass at the command of our gods;' and then, apparently referring to the acknowledged humiliation of Christ, and to the Arian controversy as to His real deity, he added, ' It is manifest that your God is altogether without power ; it cannot even be proved that he is of the divine family.' Although the king could not be prevailed upon to declare himself a Christian, he seems to have made no objection to the child's being 1 6 Mediceval Missions. baptized at the instance of the mother, and it was baptized accordingly. Within a few days the child died, and the father, in the bitterness of his moody grief, reproached the poor mother with having caused his death, by taking him from under the protection of the national gods, and dedicating him to one who could not guard him. In answer to this taunt the weeping mother gave thanks to God for that He had deigned to receive her little one into His kingdom; for I know, said she, that children who die so young are permitted to see the face of God. When another child was born, the queen again insisted on his being baptized, and the king reluctantly consented. He too fell sick, and the mother feared that if he also were taken away the father's heart would be steeled against the name and the gospel of Christ. She therefore prayed earnestly that his life might be spared. Her prayer was heard, and the child lived. I have entered at some length into these details, in order to show the attitude of Clovis in relation to the gospel, for years before he embraced it. I think it nmst have appeared that his mind was very much in the condition in which the minds of many are at all times. He could not despise the religion of Clotilda. He knew that Mr Christianity was better than his heathenism. He could not, he dared not, oppose it ; but he could not take up the cross and follow Christ. The moment of decision came at last. It was, as pro- LKCT. I.] Conversion of Clovis. 1 7 bably you all have heard, on the battle-field. In an engagement with the Allemainii near Tolbiacum (Zulpich) the fortune of war seemed to be against him; his troops were discouraged, and even ready to tlee. After vain endeavours to rally them and restore their wonted courage, he remembered the God of Clotilda, and appealed to Him for help. ' Jesus Christ,' he said, ' whom Clotilda praises as the Son of the living God ! Thou who art called the helper of the helpless, and of whom it is said that Thou givest victory to those who hope in Thee, I humbly entreat Thy glorious succour. Wouldst Thou vouchsafe to me the victory over these mine enemies, and were I to experience the power which those devoted to Thy name profess to have experienced, so should I believe in Thee and be baptized into Thy name. For I have called upon my gods, and tliey are, as I find, too far away to help me. Hence I believe that they lack power, since they come not to the help of those who obey them. Now I call upon Thee. My desire is to believe on Thee, were I but delivered thereby from my enemies.' Scarcely had he thus spoken when the king of the Allemanni was slain, and his army fled, leaving the victory with Clovis and his Franks. Immediately on quitting the field, w^hich had been converted from a field of expected defeat into a field of victory, he seems to have sent for Vedastus, then a presbyter at Toul, and to have placed himself under 1 8 MedicBval Missions. his instruction as a catechumen. On his return to Eheims he gladdened the heart of Clotilda with the tidings of his victory, and with the far gladder tidings of the conquest of his heart by the power of God. At her request Eemigius, bishop of Eheims, — probably the same to whom he had made the promise which his stern follower put it out of his power to fulfil, — gladly undertook the office of preparing the royal catechumen for baptism. This was not long delayed. It took place with a degree of pomp which we cannot but regard as unseemly, the bishop charging him to worship henceforth Him whom he had scorned, and to burn the gods which he had hitherto worshipped. Before this he had dealt with his followers, and several thousands of them — 3000 according to one account, 5000 according to another — were baptized along with him. The conversion of Clovis has naturally been the subject of much discussion, in view of its important bearing on the acceptance of the gospel by the new European world. The Franks were, even at this time, a very powerful tribe; and they increased in power by repeated conquests, and by virtue of their superior civilisation, until they became the paramount power in Europe. Although it is from the Franks that France takes its name, and although Clovis is gene- rally spoken of as king of France, yet his kingdom was not co-extensive with the modern France. He lp:ct. I.] Conversion of Clovis. 19 never possessed the whole of that country, and he possessed territories that now belong to Switzerland and to Germany. I can offer but a few observations on so critical an event. First of all, I would refer to two incidents which have been related to show his gross ignorance of the Christian system. The first is, that when Eemigius led him into the cathedral for his baptism, and when he saw the gorgeous manner in which it had been fitted up for the occasion, he whispered to the bishop the question, whether this were the lieaven of which he had told him so much. Now I cannot believe that this was the question of ignorance ; I have no doubt that it was only the extravagant exclamation of wonder. The other is, that on one occasion, long after his baptism, when he was listening to a preacher who was describing in vivid terms the deliverance of our Lord into the hands of His enemies, his feelings were so wrought upon that he grasped his sword-hilt and exclaimed, ' Had I been there with my brave Franks, they had not dared treat Him so.' From this it has been inferred that he was utterly ignorant of the value of the sufferings and death of Christ, and the necessity of these in order to the salvation of men. Now I must protest against such an inference. While we glory in the cross of Christ, — and God forbid that we should glory in aught save it ! — we are not to be inhumanly void of human sympathy with the sufferings of the Man of Sorrows. 20 MedicEval Missions. While we know that His enemies could have had no power against Him except it had been given them from above, we are not to forget that therefore he that delivered Him to them had the greater sin. While we know that both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, but did whatsoever the hand and the counsel of God deter- mined afore to be done (Acts iv. 27, 28), we are not to forget that while they were the unconscious instru- ments in carrying into accomplishment the divine decrees, they were not the less guilty of a most horrid crime ; and I venture to think that there was nothing unnatural and nothing reprehensible in Clovis' expres- sion in his own way of his sense of that crime. Nothing unnatural, I am sure, for every child Avho hears the tale of the oppressions and afflictions of the Saviour has the same feeling; nothing repre- hensiljle, I humbly think, for that was the warrior's mode of expressing the feeling which the child expresses by bitter tears of mingled sympathy and indignation. As to the terms of Clovis' vow, I am free to say that this kind of bargaining with Christ, offering his allegiance as the price to be paid for victory over his enemies, does not indicate a right estimate of the terms on which a sinful man should deal with the infinitely gracious offer of salvation. But we ought to remember that a right appreciation of that grace is LECT. I.] Conversion of Clovis. 21 unattainable and impossible without the experience of it. There is no man who accepts the gospel salvation that does not come to perceive that his motives for accepting it were infinitely below those by which he ought to have been actuated. Yet He, whose blessed characteristic it is, that He quencheth not the smoking flax nor breaketh the bruised reed, deigneth to meet with men on their own low ground, and, by graciously and gradually vouchsafed experience, to lead them to clearer views and higher principles of action. This is especially the case with men brought up under the carnalizing and secularizing influences of heathenism. The same thing goes on every year in many a Bengali village, that was enacted on the battle-field of Zulpich. The poor cultivator will become a Christian if Christ will grant him an abundant crop of rice, or will secure his patch of sugar-cane from devastation by the wild boar, or will enable him to conceal his small hoard, it may be of some few rupees, from the merciless exacter. It is very easy for us to weigh such motives in the balance and find them wantin£r. Oaf?ht we not rather to magnify that blessed grace of the gospel, which accommodates it to the infinitely varying conditions and wants of men, so that all the weary and heavy- laden may come to Christ, and find that if they get not from Him what their unenlightened minds and unsanctified hearts desire, they get infinitely more and infinitely better at the hands of Him who is able to do 2 2 Mediceval Missions. for them exceeding abundantly above what they can ask or think ? Then, I think, there can be no doubt that the example of Constantine had been sedulously com- mended to the imitation of Clovis by his wife and her spiritual advisers. Without doubt, the idea of Christ which had been mainly presented to him was that of a Lord of hosts, a God of battles ; and as he had learned that under the standard of the cross Constan- tine by Heaven's direction fought and conquered, so in the hour of his extreme need, when his brave Franks could not avail him, and when ignominious defeat, in his eyes the greatest of all possible evils, w'as impending, it is no wonder that it was only by way of experiment tlmt he had recourse to Him of whom he had heard tliat all power is given Him in heaven and in earth, and that He is willing to use that power on behalf of His votaries. He had faith enough to apprehend that the God whom Clotilda worshipped is able to give good instead of evil ; the higher apprehension that He is able to make all things work together for good to them who love Him, — that ignominious defeat sanctified by His blessing were a richer and a better boon than the most glorious victory unblessed by Him, — this apprehension was confessedly beyond his reach. But in his case, as in every other, the sincerity of his conversion must be judged of mainly from the LEGT. I.] Character oj Clovis. 2 3 consistency or inconsistency of his future life, and judgment must be applied in this case with more con- sideration of circumstances than we, perhaps, are well able to give. Unquestionably Clovis never came up to, or rather seems never to have come any nearer to, that standard of Christian meekness and forbearance which we rightly regard as essential to the Christian character. Not only was it as a soldier on the battle- field that he embraced the gospel, but as a soldier in days long preceding these, when civilisation and long diffused Christianity have to some extent mitigated the horrors of war ; and such he remained to the last. Eettberg says sententiously, that ' his blackest deeds were done after his baptism.' I do not find this verified by his history, excepting in so far that viost of his deeds were done after his baptism, for he was baptized at the age of thirty, and died at the age of forty-five. This, at all events, ought to be recorded to his credit, that his crimes were those of the warrior and the conqueror, not of the voluptuary or the sensualist. It is freely conceded that he had none of that horror of blood-shedding which the breathing of an atmosphere impregnated with the fragrance of the gospel of peace and love has made natural to us. Nor can it be denied that he had little of that sense of honour which ennobles the bravery of our Christian soldiers, and leads them to temper with the principles of a hio-h moralitv the old and hateful maxim that all 24 Medicsval Missions. things are lawful in war. But no one has ever laid to his charge any deed of lawless lust, or sensuality, or intemperance. The virtues which were mainly incul- cated upon him by his spiritual advisers he faithfully practised. His liberality to them and to their churches was unbounded. He acknowledged the duty, and I can find no evidence of his having failed to practise it, of treating with kindness such Christians as the for- tune of war threw into his power. He seems even to have gone a step beyond this. On going to war with the Goths, he intimates (in a letter preserved by Baronius) the proclamation which he made to his army, to the effect that no churches were on any account to be plundered or injured ; that the persons of the clergy and of widows devoted to God, and their children living in the same houses with them, were to be inviolate ; that every prisoner was to be set free who should be proved to be a Catholic; only that such proof should be rigidly demanded. If by the churches and clergy he meant — as one would think he must have meant — the Arian churches and clergy of the Goths, then it is a monument of a spirit of tolera- tion which is nothing less than wonderful. There is a reflection of a general kind suggested to me by the history of Clovis and his conversion, which seems worthy of our best attention, not only by reason of its connection with the character of a great deal of the missionary work of the period with which LECT. I.] Nationalism and Individualism. 2 5 we liave to do, but still more because it refers to matters which will constantly recur in connection with mission work in our own times. The contro- versy which was recently carried on, more on the Continent than in this country, between the advocates of nationalism and those of individualism, had not formally arisen ; but the subject-matter of that con- troversy must ever exist, and must influence the character of all missionary work. I ought, perhaps, to state that this controversy and this difference have no connection with the controversy and the difference on the subject of established churches, and the duty of nations in their national capacity towards the truth and church of God. The difference may exist inside of established churches and inside of non-established churches, and has no relation to the differences be- tween these two. Both in the case of Clovis, and very notably in the case of some of the Saxon kings of England, it is quite manifest that the great object which the missionaries of those times set before them was the securing of a general or national profession of Christianity, rather than the conversion of individual souls to God. Now, I am far from a desire to de- preciate or undervalue the former of these. Xo one, who has lived so long as I have lived in a heathen land, and so long as I have lived in a Christian land, can have any doubt as to the immense importance of the diffusion of the light of the gospel amongst a 26 MedicEval Missions. community. The suppression of heathen rites and usages ; the creation of a national conscience ; the formation of a public opinion in favour of the pure, the honest, the true, the lovely ; the elevation of the moral standard by even the formal recognition of the pure law of the gospel ; the overthrow of superstition, and the vindication of the right of man to exercise the faculties which God has given him as a rational creature, — all these are unspeakable blessings, and all of them are blessings which the gospel surely brings in its train. But they are secondary blessings, and as such, they are to be received with devout thankful- ness. When the spiritual life of church or minister or missionary is vigorous, and the eye is fixed on the rescue of perishing souls from death, these secondary blessings will come unsought, as the thunder follows the lightning, — unsought, but not unheeded or un- acknowledged or unappreciated. But when in churcli or minister or missionary the spiritual life is low, when there is little experience and little appreciation of the blessing of personal interest in Christ's great salvation, then these secondary blessings are regarded as primary. So they are sought, and when so sought, they are not attained. To produce an echo, you must first produce a sound. To diffuse light or warmth through a hall, you must have brightly burning lamps or a glowing furnace. To leaven the three measures of meal, you must have real active leaven inserted into LECT. I.] Romish Histories. 27 the mass. Again I say that I do not undervalue the outward recognition of the claims of the gdspel by large bodies of men ; but yet I maintain that there is a more excellent way. The gospel must first work inwardly before it can effectively work outwardly. I doubt if all the thousands who Avere baptized along with Clovis did so much to elevate the tone of thought and action in the army and the nation as might have been done by some two or three men in whose hearts the fire of divine love had been kindled, and who were by grace made willing to spend and to be spent for Christ, who counted all but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus their Lord. There was doubtless much honest mission -work done in this early period ; but unhappily the records of it are so mixed up with matters manifestly fabulous, and the amount of success achieved is so manifestly exaggerated, that it is impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. The older church historians and the Eomish calendars of saints contain innumerable names, and of those who bore them I have no doubt that many did good work, and did it well ; but all that is recorded of them is, that they made innumerable converts, and then generally the higher praise is accorded them that they wore foul clothes, and abounded in vermin ! Amongst all the causes of complaint that we have against Eome and Eomanism, not the least is that her writers, by their inability to appreciate the grandly 2 8 Medics val Missions. simple, and by erecting an utterly false standard of goodness and nobility, have polluted the stream of history, have kept back from us the knowledge of much that we should have been the better for know- ing, and have given us a vast amount of information concerning which we can only charitably hope that it is all false. Let me just give two or three specimens, fairly representative of hundreds that I might give, from a great Encyclopaedia of Catholic Missions, published in Paris in 1863, Here is what is said of St. Blimond: — ' Blimond (Saiut), missionary in the seventh century in the north of France. Disgusted with the world, and burning with the desire to extend the kingdom of God, he joined himself to St. Valery of Auvergne, who was first a shepherd, and then the apostle of several provinces in the direction of Belgium. They together preached the word of God to the idolatrous people of these countries; and after having preached with great success the faith of Jesus Christ, and drawn away a crowd of pagans from their errors, they retired to Ponthieu, into a desert place named Leuconay; there they constructed two little cells, which sub- sequently became the monastery of Saint Valery, around which the town of that name was formed (Saint Valery on the Somme, not far from Abbeville). In this retreat St. Blimond led an admirable life. He Avas never idle, he drank nothing but water, he never ate till after sunset ; sometimes he remained for several days without taking any nourishment. He lay on the hard ground, or on branches of trees laid in a corner of his little cell. All that he could dispose of he gave to the poor, without ever caring for the morrow. He died about the middle of the seventh century.' Take another specimen, which is not indeed so wholly worthless, but contains a glimmering of that LECT. I.] Pater mis. 29 information which we so earnestly desire, and which we ouglit to have received so much more abundantly : — ' Patermis or Pair (Saint), missionary in the diocese of Cou- tances in the sixth century, afterwards bishop of Avranches. He was born at Poitiers, where his father held an important oflBce. Trained under tlie eye of a virtuous mother, who instilled into him the great maxims of Christian piety, he was early convinced of the vanity of earthly things, and embraced the monastic state in tiie abbey of Ansion, afterwards called St. Jouin, in the diocese of Poitiers. Subsequently, in order to advance in the paths of perfection, he withdrew from his relative?, and retired, with another religious (St. Scubilion), into the forest of Scicy, in the dioci se of Coutances. Having been ordained priest by St. Leon- tien, bishop of Coutances, he preached the gospel to the idolaters of the land. He converted an incredible multitude of them, and succeeded in procuring the demolition of an ancient temple, which had always been held in great veneration among the Gauls. We see here one example among a thousand that France did not become Christian from the day of the baptism of Clovis and his warriors. Besides the conqiiering race, it was necessary to bring into the fold of the church the incomparably more numerous Gaulish race. That race had not been wholly absorbed into the Roman paganism, and had retained, especially in the rural dis- tricts, its national worship, which was that of the Druids. It was necessary to root out that superstition from all the provinces, each one of which presented obstacles peculiar to itself, and required to have devoted to it many missionaries during several centuries. St. Paternus, converting so great a number of pagans about the middle of the sixth century, is one of those pious labourers who, under God, have fertilized, by their toils, their sweat, their prayers, and their holiness, that fair portion of the Lord's vineyard whicli is called the church of France. As fellow -labourers in his mis- sions, he had St. Senateur or Senier, St. Gand, bishop of Evreux, Saroaste, a priest, who lived with him in the forest of Scicy. His zeal led him also to found several monasteries. Raised for his virtues to the episcopal see of Avranches, he governed his diocese 30 MedicBval Missions. during thirteen years with much edification, and died about the year 5G5, on the same day witli St. Scubiliou, his friend and faithful comjjanion. They were buried together in the oratory of Scicy, which is now the parish church of St. Pair-sur-mer, tluis named in memory of this prelate.' There is certainly something more life-like, more human in this notice, than in most of those contained, in the work from wliich it is taken. I quite admit the accuracy and the importance of the statement, that we shall greatly mistake if we suppose that France became Christian from the day when Clovis was baptized. But I doubt whether there were any remains of the Druidic worship of the Gauls then extant. It seems unaccountable that the author speaks of the absorption of the Gaulish race into the Ptoman paganism, and says not a word of their absorp- tion into the Roman Christianity. Yet it is quite certain that the latter was far more extensive than the former. Eoman paganism did not ask of the con- quered provinces that they should forsake their own gods, and worship the gods of Eome. Roman Chris- tianity bore the reproach of intolerance by comparison ; and, indeed, Christianity is and must be intolerant in the very high and holy sense of holding that truth is one, error thousand-fold ; while tolerant in the sense of using neither compulsion on the one hand, nor earthly bribes on the other, to induce men to forsake the false and embrace the true. I have mentioned Vedastus and Reniigius as havinf? LECT. I.] Vedastus. 31 had to do with the instruction of Clovis with a view to his baptism. Of the former we know very little, ex- cepting that he is spoken of in the usual terms by the church historians of the times, and in the Romish saints' calendars, as a most laborious and successful missionary, and the worker of abundant miracles. It seems to have been through his connection with Clovis that he was brought under the notice of Eemigius, who thenceforth showed him great favour, and made him bishop of Arras. Here he laboured among the Arian and heathen Vandals and Huns, and so far as we may believe the calendars of which I have spoken, with great success. The following is the conclusion of a notice of him contained in an English calendar : — ' The people of Artois were part of his (Remigius') flock, and were in great need of instruction ; their corrupt morals and errors would require one of extraordinary abilities and exemplary piety. He could see no one better qualified for that employment than St. Vedast, and accordingly, in the year 499, he consecrated him bishop of Arras, and made him the apostle of that idolatrous people. As he was entering the town, he restored the sight of a blind man, and cured another that was lame ; which miracles had their intended effect, commanded the attention of his people, and made them look on him as one sent from heaven. The gospel had been before received in Arras, when the Romans were masters of that country. But in the year 406 the Vandals committed several outrages on the Christians there, who were quite dispersed or destroyed about fifty years later by Attila, king of the Huns. Since that time paganism was the reigning religion, and St. Vedast could not find the least trace of Christianity. All that the oldest persons there knew was that a church once stood outside the walls of the town. The natives were perversely fond of their super- 32 Mediaeval Missions. stitious worship and practices. Their blindness and obstinacy found employment for all our saint's charity and patience. Remembering St. Paul's conduct, who was all things to all men, he made use of all honest arts to gain them to the truth, and took advantage of every favourable moment to inculcate or insinuate the articles of our faith, and oppose and confute the errors in which they were involved. He spent forty years in these apostolic labours, had the satisfaction to see his church flourish in purity of faith and morals, and died on the Gth of February 539. We have a church still in London that bears his name.' Eemigiiis occupied a more prominent position than Vedastus, and is still more celebrated as a worker of miracles, both during his life and after his death. But we are to remember that the account of these miracles comes to us through his biographer, Hincmar, a distant successor in his see ; and it is quite possible that the whole, or a great part of them, were invented by him. It is to be feared, however, that he and others of his time did take advantage of the superstitious credulity of the ignorant people, and imagine that there was piety in fraud when it was employed in a good cause. But despite of the lying legends with which his biography abounds, he appears to have been a man of high character, zealous for the establishment of the kingdom of righteousness and peace. His influence with Clovis was evidently very great ; and, upon the whole, it would appear that he used it beneficially. Only one would have liked better if he had not accepted so large presents from the king. He was appointed to the bishopric of Rheims when he was LECT. I.] Ccvsarius. 33 only twenty-two years old, and held the ofl&ce for the long period of seventy-four years. Another bishop of that age seems well to merit a place even in the brief catalogue of zealous missionaries which I am able to give. I refer to Cffisarius, who had a difficult and delicate part to play, and seems to have played it well. It is noticeable in regard to him, that we find no miracles ascribed to him, but abundant deeds of charity — the founding of hospitals, the redemp- tion of captives, and unwearied constancy in prayer. The praise accorded him in the saints' calendar, how- ever, reaches its climax in the statement, that ' his love of mortification was so great that he wore no linen, though even the monks of those times were not denied that satisfaction.' As bishop of Aries, he lived under Alaric, a professed Arian, who yet seems to have held him in high esteem. His zeal in reforming abuses made him odious to his own clergy, and he was accused, apparently by some of them, of holding traitor- ous correspondence with the Burgundians, who were at war with Alaric. He was therefore banished to Bour- deaux ; but his innocence being afterwards established, he was recalled. His accuser was sentenced to be stoned to death, but was pardoned on the intercession of Cccsarius. His troubles, however, were not over. He was again accused after the death of Alaric ; but, again, his innocence was established. Thus, in works of well-doing and in labours manifold, he spent his c 34 MedicEval Missions. days. On occasion of a journey into Italy, be had an interview with Theodoric at Eavenna. As a proof of his veneration, the Arian king made him a present of a large silver basin, and a purse of money to defray his expenses. Cpesarius thankfully received these gifts of the royal bounty, and employed them in redeeming captives. The pope also having expressed a desire to see him, he went to Eome, and was received with great honour. Here also there was presented to him a large sum of money, which he sj^ent in the same way as the other. Even Neander, who is usually very niggardly in bestowing praise, warms into something like en- thusiasm when speaking of the virtues of Ca:;sarius. ' Cjesarius,' he says, ' was distiuguished for liiszcal in promoting both the spiritual and temporal welfare of the tribes among whom he lived, for his efforts to communicate religious instruction to the people in a manner suited to their wants, by the public preach- ing of the gospel, and by private intercourse with them, and for his efvrnest endeavours to ameliorate their temporal condition, and to redeem captives who had been reduced to slavery. He sold the vessels and other property of the church, even down to his own priestly robes, to furnish himself with the means for bestowing charity. The presents which he received from princes he imme- diately converted into money, that he might have wherewith to succour the needy. Amid the most difficult relations incident to the change of governments under the conquests of different tribes, Burgundians, East Goths, West Goths, Franks, and under the reigns of Arian monarchs, whose suspicions he would be likely to excite by the difference of his creed, he was enabled, by a purity of life which commanded respect, by the wisdom with which he accommodated himself to men of different dispositions, and by a charity which was extended to all without distinction, to pre- LECT. I.] Concltision. 35 serve his influence unimpaired. Though subjected to persecutions on the ground of political suspicions, yet his innocence brought him out victorious over them all, which caused him to be regarded with still fjreater reverence than before.' Such are a few specimens of the leaders of the host. Of the rank and file of the army, we know simply nothing. I doubt not that in many a remote village there were humble, pious men, who bore much at the hands of rude barbarians, and sowed the precious seed of the gospel with tears. Happily cut off by necessity from that ritualism and ceremonialism which was evidently a snare to those in more conspicuous posi- tions, we may hope that they trusted more implicitly to the power of God and the wisdom of God in the cross and the doctrine of Christ. Although we have facts to deal with which prevent our entertaining the hope that the forefathers of the European nations received the gospel of God's grace in its genuine simplicity and the full glory of its grace, yet we may well cherish the conviction that many of them received in the love of it that truth which was brought to them ; that the great army of our King, when mustered on the great day of review, shall contain in its spotless and unwrinkled ranks not a few once ' furious Franks and fiery Huns,' who shall be found to have come out of great tribulations, and out of many barbarities, and to have washed their blood-stained robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; and those, too^ who o 6 Medicsval Missions. were to tliem the messengers of divine reconciliation, delivered from all perverted views of the truth of God, shall be acknowledged to have been fellow-workers with those who, in better times and under happier auspices, have been privileged to proclaim a purer gospel; and while the former will rejoice in the superior privilege vouchsafed to the latter, the latter will confess that in this privilege they in no small degree reaped the fruit of what the others sowed ; and sowers and reapers shall unite in giving all the praise to Him who sittetli upon the throne, and to the Lamb that hath been slain. LECTURE 11. IN any presentation of the subject of mediaeval mis- sions, it is evident that the early history of the gospel in these British islands must occupy a promi- nent place. The church historians of other countries than our own acknowledge this ; and I do not need to offer any apology for the proportion of our scanty time that I am going to expend upon it. But it is proper that I should explain the reason why I introduce it at this particular stage ; and this, fortunately, I can do in a sentence. Tlie reason is mainly this : that I cannot carry the history of continental missions farther without introducino; the work of British and Irish missionaries ; and in order to do this effectually, or, indeed, to make it intelligible, I must give some account of the evangelization of Great Britain and Ireland. There is probably no question that has been more discussed, or discussed with less satisfactory result, than that relating to the first introduction of the gospel into Britain. There is no apostle or apostolic man to whom the honour has not been assigned of being the first bearer of the gladsome news to the 38 MedicBval Missions. barbarous occupants of these remotest isles. While there can be no doubt, as I think, that some knowledge of the gospel was diffused in Britain at a very early period, I have no hesitation in saying that no success has attended the attempts to identify the bearers of the good tidings. The most that can be said to have been accomplished is, that it lias been shown that we have very scanty records of the acts and travels of the apostles and first disciples of our Lord, and therefore it is impossible to prove in regard to one or other of them that they did not preach the gospel in Britain. But this is no step towards making it even probable that any one of them did so. In tlie absence of any record, or any very distinct trace of any directly evangelistic operations having been carried on, many have come to the conclusion that it was only by intercourse with Eoman soldiers and procurators, and their families, or with British hostages and prisoners that were sent to Eome, and were there brought under the influence of the gospel and again returned to their homes, and by the innumerable ways in which the tlirobs of the great heart of Eome sent their jjulsations through all the limbs and to all the extremities of her colossal empire, — that it was only through influences such as these that the people of these lands first became acquainted with Christians and Christianity. I should be the last to dispute the potency of influences such as these ; for well I know what often occurs in India in our own LECT. il] Noil- Professional Missioiiaries. 39 day, and what must certainly have often occurred in old times in lands to which formal missions had not been sent. A pious officer, a devout centurion, or a Christian civilian in a remote district, speaks of that of which his heart is full to his domestic servants, or to the numerous officials and hangers-on aljout his court; or a Christian physician drops a word to a weary and heavy-laden patient in his native hospital ; or an earnest Christian lady gathers her servants together on the Sabbath day, and reads to them the gospel story, and expounds to them, with untrained and stammering tongue indeed, but with the earnest simplicity of a loving heart, the divine method of redemption and salvation. Even little children retail to their ' bearers ' and their ' ayahs ' the lessons which have been taught them line upon line, and the little prayers which they have been taught to lisp, kneeling with heads bent on their mother's knee. A missionary goes long years after into a district where he supposes the name of Christ to be unknown, and wonders when, at the close of an address, some old man comes forward and tells him that for years he has been cherishing the faith of Christ in his heart, and has been longing and praying for the advent of a missionary who might expound to him the way of God more perfectly. Very closely analogous to the position of such a lady in India now, must have been that of the Christian wife of a Eoman centurion or a Eoman propraitor in 40 Medieval Missions. ancient Gaul, or Britain, or any other of the Eoman provinces. Only at the great day of the revelation of secret things will it be known to what an extent Christian officials and Christian ladies contributed towards the laying of the foundation of the British church. Or it might be that a British chieftain or a British merchant went to Eome, or to some other great focus of polity or commerce, attended by a retinue of his retainers and slaves. One of these loiters in the portico of some great house while his master is engaged within, and hears the slaves in waiting bantering one of their number on his attachment to some one who has been crucified. The dignified and calm replies, like an arrow from a bow, penetrate the armour of the stranger, and render it impossible for him ever to be again the man he was. On his return home he tells his barbarian neighbours that the great God of heaven loves them, even them ; that he has heard even that the Son of the God of heaven has died for them. One and another regard the strange news as treasure hid in a field ; and although they are jeered at and avoided by their neighbours and fellow- servants, yet by some strange instinct those who are in sore trouble come to them for help and consolation, while those who would fain find occasion against them are constrained to acknowledge that they cannot find any, except they find it concerning the law of their God. Let it not be said that, so far as relates to the introduction of the LECT. II.] Early British ChtLVch. 41 gospel into Britain, all this is mere hypothesis or conjecture. It is but a fair application of the great principle, that like causes produce like effects. Now it is manifest that when causes like these have operated in the introduction of the gospel into a country, it must he specially difficult to trace their operation. There is no difficulty in distinguishing the brightness of noonday from the darkness of midnight, but the keenest eye cannot discern the instant when the dawn begins. There is no difficulty in distinguish- ing betwixt the corn-field wholly green and the corn- field fully ripe, but who shall tell at what precise instant the yellowing green dissolved into the greenish yellow ? And who shall apportion to each sun-ray and to each rain-drop its proper contribution towards the result ? The advent of Paul to Philippi is an event noticeable and recordable ; the word dropped by the wife of an Aulus Plautius in the ear of her British litter-bearer or her British tiring-maid is unnoticed and unrecorded. While, however, we cannot ascertain the beginning, nor trace the progress of the evangelization of Britain, there is no historical fact better authenticated than the introduction of the gospel at a very early period, and the existence of a very considerable Christian community before the Eomans quitted the island. In order to a correct understanding of the state of matters, it is necessary to pay attention to the condition of the country at that time. Speaking generally, the whole 4 2 Meciice va I Missions. of Britain, south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, had become virtually a Eoman province. The inhabitants had, to a great extent, acquiesced in this, and had sub- mitted themselves to the government of the Eomans, paid their tribute, and regarded the path to fortune and prosperity as lying through Eoman favour and the occupancy of subordinate offices under the Eoman government. There was, however, a small body of resolute patriots who had retreated into the wastes of Cornwall and the mountains of Wales, and stedfastly resisted the aggressions of the Eoman civilisation, as they had, while it was possible, resisted the aggression of the Eoman arms. Amongst the Britons, and Eoman ofiicials and legionaries, in this main part of the island, there were many who professed the gospel, and there seems to have existed among them a regularly con- stituted Christian church. The northern part of the island was mainly occupied by the Picts ; of these a small section were also settled in Galloway. In Argyllshire there was a colony of Scoti or Scots, who seem to have come about this time from Ireland, the part of the country which they occupied being regarded as an integral part of Ireland. It was to defend themselves against the incursions and depredations of the Picts and Scots tliat the Britons called in the aid of the Saxons, after the Eomans had been obliged to recall their legions for the defence of the more central provinces of the empire. LECT. II.] Patrick. 43 It was on the border land of the Eoman province, apparently in Dumbartonshire, that Patrick was born, close upon the end of the fourth, or close upon the beginning of the liftli, century. It is almost a matter of selfish regret to us that he was not born a century later, for then we should have been called to introduce into this lecture one of the most interesting biographies to be found in the history of the church, and to con- sider many questions also of an extremely attractive kind. But the arbitrary line which we have drawn as the boundary of our period excludes the history of Patrick from our province, and we are only justified in referring to it at all on account of its important connection with the history of the succeeding cen- turies ; and it is only on this account, and to this extent, that I refer to it now. The father of Patrick was a deacon of the Christian church ; so he tells us in one place; and in another he tells us that he was a decurio, which, although properly the designation of a military officer, seems to have been applied to a civil functionary. His grandfather had been a presbyter, a fact, by the way, which his Eomanist biographers simply state, without making any remark upon it, or upon its bearing on the question of clerical celibacy. In his sixteenth year Patrick was carried away as a prisoner into Ireland, and was employed as a cowherd — or a swine-herd, according to another account — by his captor. During his captivity he was led to think 44 Medics val Missions. of that gospel, the truths of which he had known from his childhood, but which till then had not made an impression on his heart. After six years of miserable bondage he contrived to escape, and to find his way back to his father's house. From this time the desire of noble Christian revenge possessed him, and he longed to make free, with the truth of God, those who had enslaved him. But it was a long time before his desire could be fulfilled. At length, however, some- where about A.D. 440, he was enabled to set out for Ireland, and from that time until his death, which was probably in 493', he lived a life of incessant labour, and was blessed with wonderful success in the con- version of the Irish. I rest nothing upon the mani- festly fabulous legends that are regarded as historical facts by the Eomanist biographers of Patrick. In point of fact, the Romanists have no part or lot in the historical Patrick. It has been proved by the late Dr. Tod, as absolutely as any historical fact can be proved, that he had no connection with Pome, eccle- siastical or doctrinal; that their Patrick is a creature of the imagination, with nothing in common with the Patrick of history. And as Dr. Tod proved that he was not a Eomanist, so I think it can be equally proved that he was not an episcopalian ; that when in one place he speaks of his ordination as a presbyter, and when in another place he calls himself a bishop, and tells us that he had ordained 300 bishops, LECT. II.] Cohunba. 45 he has no conception of any distinction between the bishop and the presbyter. It is manifest that within a century of tlie arrival of Patrick in Ireland the idols had been ' famished out of the land,' Monasteries and churches had been established everywhere, and scliools of learning had been founded, in which not only the youth of the country were educated, but to which young men were sent in large numbers from all parts of Britain, and even from the continent of Europe. Amongst the youth of Ireland thus educated was Columba, who, born exactly one hundred years after Patrick's arrival in Ireland, was destined, in God's good providence, to pay back to Scotland the debt Avhich Ireland owed her for the gift bestowed a cen- tury before, and so to contribute to the establishment of that true communion of the saints, in virtue of which the church of Christ, in all ages and in all lands, is one body, in which all the members fitly joined together are mutually helpful, and the body maketh increase by that which every joint supplieth. Columba was of royal lineage, — that is, as we under- stand it, his family was that of one of the numerous chieftains, each of whom claimed independent rule, and maintained a greater or less degree of royal state. Trained in one of the Irish schools, and early fired with the sacred Christian enthusiasm which knows no quenching, he devoted himself to a monastic life ; and 46 MedicBval Missions. from the influence which he had with the higher classes of his countrymen, and the power with which he attracted all classes to himself, he laid the founda- tion of several extensive monasteries and flourishing churches. This may be the fittest point at which to say a few words regarding these monasteries, with which we shall have much to do in the sequel. Lord Bacon has particularized, as one of four great sources of human errors and fallacies, the misconceptions arising from the misuse or ambiguous use of words. We are apt to fall into errors of this kind, by supposing that what is sadly true of some monks and some monasteries is necessarily true of all. We know that the monastic system, as originated in Egypt, and as adopted and developed in the Eomish Church, came to absorb into itself, and to foster and exercise, all the thousand evils of the mystery of iniquity. We are safe enough in asserting that it could not well be otherwise with such a system. When men separated themselves from their fellow-men, bound themselves by vows and obligations of an inhumane, not to say an inhuman character, professed to seek the attainment of a higher order of virtue than the gospel requires, and represented that virtue as consisting not in deeds of beneficence, but in useless self-inflicted tortures and meritorious acts of unnatural devotion, there could be but one result. The good men among the monks, the good women among LECT. II.] Different Kinds of Monasteries. 47 the nuns, — and there were doubtless good men and good women amongst them even at the worst of times, — having set before them an utterly false standard of holiness, would of necessity become weak and feeble in their spiritual constitution, with no spring of happiness arising from thankful faith in their hearts, with none of that healthful exercise of grace which is essential to its growtli. But more and more the good would become a minority, as the system had no tendency to make the good better, while it lay under the fatal necessity of making the bad worse. But the Irish monasteries were altogether of a different character. Their occupants were men who found it impossible to maintain the habitudes of a Christian life in their still heathen homes. They therefore formed Christian communities, in which they might be free from the daily distractions of heathen observances, and might concentrate their missionary strength, and more effectively wage war against the idolatry by which they were surrounded. Occupied in the manual arts of husbandry and fishing for their maintenance, ministering to the bodily needs of the sick and the poor, teaching to children the elements of knowledge, and carrying on the education of selected youths to an advanced stage, undertaking long journeys for the purpose of preaching the gospel, taking in turn the duty of living in the monastery and acting as pastors of the churches formed in the 48 Medicsval Missions. outlying districts, and devoting tlieir scanty leisure to incessant transcription of the Scriptures and other books, — these men were as different as it is well possible to conceive from the Eomish monks of later ages. There was no very important difference, I am persuaded, between these monasteries and the Christian villages which have sprung up around all our missions in India and the South-Sea Islands ; still less difference probably between them and the Moravian settlements which were founded by the Herrnhuters on the shores of Greenland and on the plains of South Africa. Such settlements may not be the best conceivable or desirable, they may be liable to abuse, and may have a tendency to degenerate ; but I have no doubt that in some circumstances they are the best attainable. To return to Columba. Various accounts are given of the reason of his quitting Ireland ; but they all so far agree, that he had in some way given offence to the civil or ecclesiastical authorities, and that it was not purely missionary zeal that led him to seek other scenes for the exercise of his great evangelistic gifts. Be this as it may, it is for us to acknowledge with humble thankfulness that the finger of God was in it ; and that it was by Heaven's mission that he and his associates came to Scotland. These associates were twelve in number, and from the harmony in which they lived, and the veneration and affection that they all alonrr manifested towards their leader, it is evident LECT. II.] lona. 49 that they were a well- selected band. I have mentioned that there was an Irish or Scottish colony in Cantyre. It is said that the ruling family in it were related to Coliimba. At all events it was to them that he first came. Whether they had left Ireland after Patrick had Christianized it, or whether they had heard the gospel after their settlement in Scotland, it would appear that the gospel was known amongst them before Columba's arrival, and that it was not from him that they first heard it. From the king of this Dalriad colony Columba received a grant of the small island of Hy or lona, and there he laid the foundation of a humble institution, which was destined to realize the declaration that ' God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty ; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence.' Eomanism, by erecting a building whose ruin is but a third or fourth- rate specimen of the later Middle Age architecture, not for a moment to be compared with St. Andrews, or ]\Ielrose, or Elgin, or Arbroath, has done all that perverse ingenuity could do to rob us of the hallowed and hallowing associations that ought to cluster around lona. But, happily, she had no power to clarify the murky air, or to soften the grey rocks, or to silence 5 o Medice val Missions. the howling winds, or to stop the lashings of the never-resting waves. These sights are those on which Colnmba cast his grave, earnest looks ; these sounds fell upon his ever wakeful ears. These sights and these sounds make it still possible, however difficult, to realize that lona is a sacred place, a visit to which may stimulate to Christian enterprise, as gazing on the plain of Marathon might fan the Hame of patriotism and the love of freedom. We are probably safe in asserting that for two centuries or more lona was the place in all the world whence tlie greatest amount of evangelistic influence went forth, and on which, therefore, the greatest amount of blessing from on high rested. Unhappily, the earliest biographer of Columba is much more occupied in belauding the saint for the performance of innumerable miracles, than in detailing the innumerable journeys which he and his associates undertook, and the toilsome labours which they indefatigably went through ; and the later biographers have increased the amount of the chaff and diminished that of the wheat. But it is beyond question that under the ministrations of the ' i'amily of lona ' the Pictish nation were reclaimed from barbarism to civilisation, and converted from heathenism to Christianity. And it is very worthy of notice that in this mission, while the results were national, the processes were individual. We read not of thousands baptized at the bidding of a chief, but of LECT. II.] Death of Columba. 51 a single man, or a single pair, or a single family being baptized. During the lifetime of Columba the gospel seems to have been very generally accepted by the whole of the western Picts; by the population of the Hebrides, whose numbers were probably but small, but amongst whom missionary work must have been carried on with immense difficulty ; and by many in the Orkney, Shetland, and Faroe Islands. Very gladly would I dwell upon the history and the character of this great man, but I may not. There is, however, such exquisite beauty in his first biographer's account of his death, that I cannot deny myself the gratification of quoting it, with the omission only of two or three semi- miraculous or supernatural incidents which seem to me its only disfigurement. I retain the account of the light seen in the chapel, with the suggestion that Columba probably took his lantern with him, and that it was extinguished by his fall : — ' In the end of this same week, that is, on the day of the Sabbath, the venerable man and his pious attendant, Diormit, went to bless the barn which was near at hand. AVheu the saint had entered in and blessed it, and two heaps of winnowed corn that were in it, he gave expression to his thanks in these words, saying : I heartily congratulate my beloved monks that this year also, if I am obliged to depart from you, you Avill have a sufficient supply for the year. On hearing this, Diormit, his attendant, began to feel sad, and said : All this year, father, thou very often vexest us by so frequently making mention of thy leaving us. Jiut the saint replied to him, I have a little secret to tell thee, and if thou wilt promise me faithfully not to reveal it to any one before my death, I shall be able to speak to thee with more 5 2 Mediceval Missions. freedom about my departure. When his attendant had, on bended knees, made the promise as the saint desired, the venerable man then resumed his address : This day in the Holy Scriptures is called the Sabbath, which means rest ; and this day is indeed a Sabbath to me, for it is the last day of my present laborious life, and on it I rest after the fatigues of my labours ; and this night at midnight, which comraenceth the solemn Lord's day, I shall, according to the scriptural expression, go the way of my fathers. For already my Lord Jesus Christ deigneth to invite me, and to Him, at His invitation, I shall depart in the middle of this night : for so it hath been revealed to me by the Lord Himself. The attendant, hearing these words, began to weep bitterly, and the saint endeavoured to console him as well as he could. ' After this the saint left the barn, and in going back to the monastery rested half-way, at a place where a cross, which was afterwards erected, and is standing to this day, fitted into a mill- stone, may be observed on the roadside. While the saint, as I have said, bowed down with old age, sat there to rest a little, behold there came up to him a white pack-horse, the same that used, as a willing servant, to carry the milk vessels fi-om the cow- shed to the monastery. It came up to the saint, and . . . laid its head on his bosom, inspired, I believe, by God to do so, and knowing that its master was soon about to leave it, and that it should see him no more. . . . The attendant began to drive it away, but the saint forbade him, saying : Let it alone, as it is so fond of me . . . and saying this the saint blessed the work-horse, which turned away from him in sadness. ' Then leaving the spot, he ascended the hill that overlooketh the monastery, and stood for some little time on its summit ; and as he stood there with both hands uplifted, he blessed his monastery, saying : Small and mean tliough this place is, yet it shall be held in great and unusual honour, not only by Scotic kings and people, but also by the rulers of foreign and barbarous nations, and by their subjects. The saints also, even of other churches, shall regard it with no common reverence. ' After these words he descended the hill, and having returned to the monastery, sat in his hut transcribing the Psalter; and LKCT. II.] Death of Cohnnba. 53 coming to that verse of Ps. xxxiv. -where it is written : " Tliey that seek the Lord sliall not want anything that is good " — here, said he, at tlie end of the page, I must stop. Wliat follows, let Baitheu write. . . . Having written the above-mentioned verse at the end of the page, the saint went to the church to the nocturnal vigils of the Lord's day ; and so soon as this was over, he returned to his chamber and spent the remainder of the night on his bed, where he had a bare flagstone for his couch, and for his pillow a stone which stands to this day as a kind of monument beside his grave. While he was reclining there, he gave his last instructions to the brethren, in the hearing of his attendant alone, saying: These, my children, are the last words I address to you — that ye be at peace, and have unfeigned charity among yourselves ; and if you thus follow the example of the holy fathers, God, the comforter of the good, will be your helper . . . ; and He will not only give you sufficient to supply the wants of this present life, but will also bestow on you the good and eternal rewards which are laid up for those that keep His commandments. Thus far have the last words of our venerable founder, as he was about to leave this weary pilgrimage for his heavenly country, been preserved for recital in our brief narrative. After these words, as the hour of his departure gradually approached, the saint became silent. Then, as soon as the bell tolled at midnight, he rose hastily and went to the church ; and running more quickly than the rest, he entered it alone, and knelt down in prayer beside the altar. At the same moment his attendant, Diormit, who more closely followed him, saw from a distance that the whole interior of the church was filled with a heavenly light in the direction of the saint. And as he drew near to the door, the light which he and a few more of the brethren liad seen quickly disappeared. Diormit therefore entering the cliurch, cried out in a mournful voice, Where art thou, father? And feeling his way in the darkness, as the brethren had not yet brought in the lights, he found the saint lying before the altar ; and raising him up a little, he sat down beside him, and laid his holy head on his bosom. !Mcanwhile the rest of the monks ran in hastily in a body with their lights, and beholding their dying father, burst into lamentations. And the 54 MedicEval Missions. saiot, as we have been told by some who were present, just before his soul departed, opened wide his eyes and looked round him from side to side with a countenance full of wonderful joy and gladness, no doubt seeing the holy angels coming to meet him. Diormit then raised the holy right hand of the saint, that he might bless his assembled monks. And the venerable father him- self moved his hand at the same time, as well as he was able, that, as he could not in words, he might at least by the motion of his hand be seen to bless his brethren ; and having thus given them his holy benediction, he immediately breathed his last.' The book from which I have taken this long extract abounds, as I have said, with lying legends, and yet I have great confidence that this narrative is substantially true, this scene painted from nature; and that for this reason especially, that I am sure that the author or compiler of these legends could not have invented it. It is too grand in its simplicity, too beautiful in its unadorned realism, to have originated with him. I should have been sorry to have been without the description of the meeting and parting of the old hero and his four-footed friend. It tells of a kindly, genial, thoughtful, loving nature, a heart in accord with that of Him who feedeth the young ravens which cry unto Him. ' He prayeth well who loveth well Both man, and bird, and beast ; He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small ; P'or the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.' And in this connection let me say that many of the legends of miracle stated to have been performed by LECT. II.] Kentigern. 55 Columba, I believe to be notliing more than exaggera- tions of tliat power whicli a man of observant mind and loving heart acquires over the objects, and what we call the powers, of nature. As an observant sailor he was weather-wise. With the practised eye and loving heart of a naturalist, he gained a knowledge of the habits of all the creatures of earth and air, — a knowledge which is essentially power, — and by the very potency of love he went far to regain that dominion over the inferior animate and the inanimate creation wliich was originally given to sinless man. I have no artistic gifts ; but if I had, I know of few subjects that I would prefer to treat, to this parting between the saint and the pack-horse. In looking on the picture of the saint's last day on earth, one almost involuntarily exclaims: 'Oh that I might die the death of the righteous ! ' Let me, a Scotsman, addressing a Scottish audience, say that we have a noble heritage in the name and memory of Columba ; a heritage which entails on us the duty of generous emulation, a shield blazoned in all its quarterings with inspiriting devices ; a noble heritage ; but which yet is but a heritage of shame to those who are indifferent to the cause of God and His gospel. "What Columba was to the Highlands, that in some degree does his contemporary Kentigern, otherwise called Mungo, appear to have been to tlie Lowlands of Scotland. But, unhappily, w^e j^ossess no life of 5 6 Medice val Missions. him of earlier date than the middle of the twelfth century, and the two Lives which have come down to us from that century are not only filled with legends that are incompatible with one another, but the chronology is hopelessly confused. Both Dr. M'Lauchlan and Mr. Skene point out the confusion, and do all, probably, that can be done to unravel it. All that seems to be authentic is that Kentigern was born in East Lothian ; that he was educated in a British monastery at Culross, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth ; that he left that place and went to Glasgow ; that he was driven thence by a hostile king of Strathclyde, and took refuge in Wales, where he was hospitably received by David, with whom he lived for a time. Learning of a change of dynasty in Strath- clyde, he turned northward, preaching all the way, settled for a time at Hoddam in Dumfriesshire, and then returned to Glasgow. The writer of one of the Lives states that he took it from an older MS. ; but as that MS. contained matter inconsistent with sound doctrine, he had corrected it. In other words, he had Eomanized it. One of the innumerable miracles with which he credits Kentigern is memorable by us, inasmuch as it is commemorated in the arms of the city of Glasgow. Almost the least unlikely thing recorded of him is a visit paid to him at Glasgow by Columba. If this be authentic, it would give a fixed point for the chronology of his life. But if it had LECT. II.] Welsh Church. 57 been authentic, we should have expected it to be men- tioned by Adamnan in the Life of Columha. Altogetlier, although we doubt not that Kentigern lived, and that he performed an important part in the evangelization of our portion of the island, his history is a virtual blank. "VVe must now turn our eyes southward. The original inhabitants of Britain who had not been incorporated with the Eomans, had withdrawn them- selves into the remote districts of Cornwall and Wales. There is a tradition that Caractacus, a British king, and his family were taken as prisoners or hostages to Piome ; that there some of them became Christians, and, on their return home, introduced the gospel among the Welsh. Whether this be so or not, it may be regarded as certain that on the invasion of the Saxons large numbers of the Christian Britons betook themselves to Wales, and there was a flourish- ing church there during the fifth and sixth centuries. I have already had occasion incidentally to mention David, wlio is regarded as the patron saint of Wales. There were monasteries apparently of exactly the same character with lona, and there brethren were carrying on mission work vigorously among the Saxons of Wessex. Gregory was evidently aware of this when he sent Augustine to England ; and it was with refer- ence to them that he gave him the charge to insist upon absolute submission on their part, while he was 5 8 Medice val Missions. to use great forbearance with the heathen, and to tolerate their practice of many of their acts of worship, if lie could only persuade them to practise them under a Christian name. I introduce the mention of Gregory and Augustine thus abruptly, because I take for granted that every one knows the story of the slave boys in the Eoman market, of the somewhat poor puns which the future pope uttered on the occasion, and of the resolution which he then formed, and which he tenaciously kept, to contribute towards the Chris- tianization of Britain. But while I do not hold the wit of Gregory in high estimation, I am very far from disparaging his zeal, and cannot help regretting that he was not permitted to carry out his design of becoming himself a missionary to our island. You are aware that he had been appointed by the pope, at his own request, to this mission, and that he had actually proceeded on his journey, when he was recalled, on the representation of the people of Piome that his presence there w^as essential to the well-being of the city and the church. When, after sixteen years' interval, he himself became x^op^j n,nd resolved to carry out the design of the conversion of the people of Deira, he was not fortunate in the choice of his chief agent. ' We cannot,' says the present bishop of Ossory, ' give Augustine an exalted place among missionary heroes. Discouraged by the reports which he heard on the way concerning the savage Saxons, LECT. II.] Augustine. 59 he went back to Rome, and sought release from his arduous enterprise. But he had to deal Avith a nobler spirit than his own. Gregory would hear of no excuses, and sent him forth once more to the work which had been assigned him.' This, I apprehend, is a fair estimate of the characters of the two men. I should notice that it was in 596 that Augustine was appointed to the English mission, exactly a century after the baptism of Clovis. The history of his first doings in Britain is in some respects a repetition of the history on which I dwelt at such length in my former lecture. Ethelbert, king of Kent, and lord paramount of all the other Saxon kings to the south of the Humber, had, like Clovis, a Christian wife. Like Clovis, too, he acquiesced in her observance of the forms of her own worship. To Kent, tlierefore, and to Canterbury, the capital of the Kentish king, Augustine and his followers bent their steps, and were joyfully received by Bertha, the Christian queen. The king gave them a residence in the Isle of Thanet, off the coast of Kent, and thither he himself repaired, and gave them an audience in the open air ; because, as Bede honestly tells us, he was afraid to meet with them in a house, lest they should practise some magical arts upon him. The interview was satisfactory. The king agreed to give them a place of abode, a stipend for their main- tenance, and full liberty to preach to the people. It is remarkable that in Bede we have only a parenthetic 6o Mediceval Missions. mention of the conversion and baptism of Ethelbert, although it is scarcely conceivable that men who evidently were greatly given to pomp and show, and especially having the example of the baptism of Clovis before their eyes, should have allowed such an event to pass without making it the occasion of a grand display. The success of the preachers in respect of quantity is probably much magnified ; the quality of their work will not bear any test which even intelli- gent Eomanists would apply to it. I find the pope writing to the bishop of Alexandria as follows : — ' Whereas the nation of the Angli, placed in a corner of the world, remained even till now uubelievers and worshippers of wood and stone, it pleased God, through the help of j'^our prayer, that I should be led to send a monk of my own monastery to preach to them. . . . Letters have just reached us concerning his welfare and his work. For either he or those who were sent with him flash forth in that nation with so great miracles, that they seem to equal the apostles in the signs which they show. On the solemnity of the Ijord's nativity, which was observed in this first indiction, more tlian ten thousand angels^ are announced as having been baptized by our brother and fellow-bishop.' I am not quite sure about the dates, but I under- stand this statement to refer to the Christmas of 597, Ethelbert himself having been baptized on Whit- Sunday, the 2d of June of that year. My doubt is, ^ I do not know whether this is a misprint in Baronius, from whom I take this letter, or whether it is a repetition of the old play upon the words Angli and Anrjeli, which the writer had made so long before. LECT. II.] Augustine. 6i whether it be not of the Christmas of 596 that the pope speaks. But taking even the later date, the pope might well say, not that their success equalled, but that it far exceeded that of the apostles ; for M^e read of no such national conversions in apostolic times. But while having very little faith in the conversions effected by Augustine and his associates, and while deeply deploring the contests which soon arose out of their mission, I believe that, in the providence of God, they served a purpose which could not otherwise have been served. So great was the enmity betwixt the. Saxons and the Britons, that the former would not receive the gospel at the hands of the latter. It may be doubted even whether the latter would be willing to give the blessed gift to the former. It seems to have been necessary that foreign missionaries should be employed to begin the work of the conversion of the Saxons ; and so we may well acknowledge the good to have been of God, while the large amount of evil that soon ensued, and which lasted for many centuries, and which survives to this day in the claim of Eome to supremacy in our land, is due to the pride and evil passions of meu. Bede has preserved for us an interesting correspond- ence between Augustine and the pope, in which the former put, and the latter answered, many questions of moral and ecclesiastical casuistry. One of Augustine's questions was as to the relations which were to subsist 62 Mediceval Missions. between liim and the Gaulish and British bishops. Gregory tells hiin very firmly that he has no authority whatever in Gaul, and then adds : ' But all the bishops of the Britains^ we commit to your brotherhood/ that the unlearned may be taught, the weak strengthened by persuasion, the perverse corrected by authority.' We do not hear of any efforts that he put forth to instruct the ignorant or strengthen the weak ; but he soon set himself to the correction of the perverse. The great matter of perversity related to the time of observing Easter, Both the Irish and the British churches had a mode of reckoning, in virtue of which their Easter might coincide with that of Eome, but which would sometimes differ from it by an interval of a month. This grieved the heart of Augustine. He offered them permission to retain many of their customs which were not according to Eoman usages, provided only they would acknowledge him as their archbishop, and observe Easter at the canonical season. This they refused to do. Then he invited them to a conference, — so they regarded it, — or summoned them to attend a synod, according to his representation of the matter. They asked advice of an old hermit, who was held in high repute among them, as to the course they should follow in the meeting. His answer was, ^ Plural, meaniug the British Islaiuls, including Ireland. * That is, 'to you, our brother,'— as 'your Lordship,' 'his Emi- nence,' 'your Holin'3ss,' etc. LECT. II.] Augustine. 63 ' If he be a man of God, comply with his proposals.' ' But how,' said they, ' shall we ascertain this ? ' He answered : ' The Lord says, Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek and lowly in heart.' If, therefore, this Augustine is meek and lowly in heart, it must be believed that it is the Lord's yoke that he carries, and offers to you to be carried. But if he is harsh and haughty, it is manifest that he is not of God, nor ought we to give heed to his speech. Again they said : ' And how shall we judge of this ? ' ' Allow him,' was the answer, ' to enter first with his followers into the place of meeting, and if he rise up on your entrance, be sure that he is a servant of Christ, and listen respectfully to him. But if he despise you, and do not rise up before you, though you be more numerous than his followers, let him also be despised by you.' Bede, from whom I take this narrative, with perfect honesty tells that Augustine, when weighed in this balance, was found wanting. According to his account, they made the whole matter turn upon the fact of his having failed to render them a kindly greeting. They conferred, he tells us, with one another in this wise. If now he will not rise up to us, how much more will he treat us contemptuously if we acknowledge subjection to him ! Thus the negotiation was broken off, and the conference ended with the utterance by Augustine of what Bede repre- sents as a prophecy which was in due time fulfilled. 64 Medicsval Missions. but that was in reality only a vain threat of Heaven's vengeance upon those who rejected his authority. In the various Saxon kingdoms of the south there was a pretty regular alternation of Christianity and heathenism. A heathen king becomes Christian, and forthwith all his subjects are Christians too. He returns to heathenism, or he dies and is succeeded by a heathen, and no Christians are to be found. Bede gives us an interesting account of the conversion of the king and people of Northumbria, of which, as it is both important in itself, and may be regarded as a fair specimen of the mode of evangelization adopted in those days, I shall translate a considerable portion : — ' To this nation an opportunity was given of accepting the faith, because their king aforesaid (Edwin) was allied to the kings of Kent, having received in marriage Edelburga, otherwise called Tate, a daughter of King Edelbert. When first he sought this alliance, by sending some of his nobles to her brother Eadbald, who then ruled in Kent, he was answered, that it was not lawful that a Christian virgin should be given in marriage to a pagan, lest the faith and the sacraments of the heavenly King should be profaned by intercourse with a king who was quite ignorant of the true worship of God. "When this answer was reported to the king by his messengers, he promised that he would in no way do anything contrary to the Christian faith which the lady professed ; yea, he said that he would promise that she should observe the faith and worship of her religion after the Christian manner, with all who should come with her, whether men or women, piicsts or servants. And he professed himself willing to adopt the same religion, if, on examination by wise men, it were found holier and worthier of God than his own. On these terms the lady is promised and is sent to Edwin ; and, according to the an angement, Paulinus, a LECT. II.] Northumbria. 65 man beloved of God, is ordained bishop, to go with lier ; and by- daily exhortation and the celebration of the heavenly sacraments, he confirmed her and her attendants, that they might not be polluted by the society of pagans.' The narrative goes on to tell how the efforts of Paulinus to convert the king and the people were for a time in vain. Then, wlien an attempt to assassinate the king by an emissary of a neighbouring king was defeated, and on the same day the queen gave birth to a daughter, — ' The king promised that he would renounce his idols, and serve Christ, if He would give him life, and victory in fighting against that king by whom the assassin was sent .who had wounded him ; and in pledge of the fulfilment of his promise, he assigned his daughter to the Bishop Paulinus to be consecrated to Christ. She was baptized on the sacred day of Pentecost, the first of the Nortliumbrian nation, with twelve others of lier family.' The king recovered from his wound, and completely subdued his enemy. From that time he abandoned the worship of idols, but would not make a profession of Christianity till he had more fully examined it. At last, being eagerly pressed by Paulinus, he resolved to submit the question to a council of his nobles, and to be guided by their advice. Bede gives us the judgment of two of these as follows. The question having been propounded by the king, Coifi, the chief of his priests, forthwith answered : — ' Observe, king, what is the character of the religion which is now offered to us. I most truly declare to you what I have certainly learned, that the religion which we have hitherto pro- E 6 6 Medics val Missions . fessed has no virtue at all. For uo one of your people has given himself more earnestly to the worship of our gods than I have, and, nevertheless, there are many who receive from thee more bountiful gifts and higher dignities than I do, and prosper more in all things which they set themselves to do or to acquire. But if the gods had any power, they would rather help me, who have been more sedulous in their service. Whence it remains that if ye perceive on examination that those new things which are told us are better and more efficacious, we should without any delay hasten to receive them.' The reasoning of the old priest is inimitable. The way in which he involves the king in common condem- nation with the gods for the neglect of his merits, is a stroke of wit which we should probably have thought to be beyond the reach of a seventh-century Northumbrian. The other judgment is often quoted, and sometimes misquoted, as happily illustrating the darkness of those to whom the gospel has not brought life and im- mortality to light : — ' The present life of men upon the earth, in comparison with that portion of time of which we know nothing, seems to me, king, to be like as when you are sitting at supper with your generals and ministers in the winter-time, a fire being lit in the middle of the hall, and the supper-room being well warmed, but storms of wintry rains or snows raging outside ; tlien a sparrow comes and flies swiftly across the hall. It enters by one door, and straight- way goes out by another. Just as long as it is within, it is not touched by the winter's storm ; but having passed over the small space of serenity in a moment, as it came from winter, it imme- diately returns to winter, and you see it no more. So this life of man appears to us for a little space, but as to what follows or what has gone before we are utterly ignorant. Whence, if this new doctrine brings anything more certain, it seems to deserve to be followed.' LECT. II.] Northiimbria. 67 The result m'hs a solemn resolution to abandon idolatry, to devote the idols to anathema and to fire, Coifi, the high priest, volunteering to lead the icono- clastic band. Edwin was baptized at York, of which Paulinus was made bishop. Of all the wholesale conversions that have come under our notice, this of Edwin is certainly the least unsatisfactory. He seems to have been a remarkably thoughtful man, trained in the school of adversity; a man of rare virtue and honour even before his conversion, and subsequently to have adorned the doctrine, which he embraced, of his God and Saviour. He was slain in battle in the year 633. Before he came to the throne of Northum- bria, it had been held by his uncle Ethelfrid, who had excluded Edwin, and had been greatly hated by the people. When Edwin succeeded in getting Eedwald, king of the East Angles, to espouse his cause, and by his assistance overthrew the usurper Ethelfrid, the three sons of Ethelfrid fled into Scotland, and were educated as Christians in an Irish monastery, which had long existed among the southern Scots in Gallo- way. On the death of Edwin, these princes returned and seized the kingdom, which two of them divided between them. They apostatized from Christianity, and the nation followed their example. Paulinus and the queen-dowager fled first into Kent, then apparently into France. These two kings were both slain in battle within two years ; and in 6 3 5 the third brother,- 68 MedicEval Missions. Oswald, again united the kingdom of Nortliumbria, and soon extended it, so that it included the whole country from the Humber to the Forth. When Oswald came to the throne, he found that the people, if they had not relapsed into idolatry, had at all events abandoned the practices of Christian worship and Christian life. Being himself a sincere believer, and longing for the good of his people, he sent to lona, and begged that missionaries might be sent, to restore again the know- ledge and the worship of God. One was sent, but soon returned discouraged. When the lona family heard of his failure, they set themselves to inquire into its cause. And Aidan having suggested that perhaps their brother had not been altogether judicious in dealing with the Northumbrians, all eyes were turned towards him. Will you go ? was the question of all ; and he at once consented. In 635, he repaired to Northumbria, and was cordially received by the king. At first he was unacquainted with the Saxon language, and of course the Northumbrians were equally un- acquainted with the Scotch, or Gaelic. But the work must not be delayed. To preach through an inter- preter is but a poor way of preaching in general ; but necessity has no law. And fortunately there was at hand an interpreter skilled in both languages, through whose lips the breathing thoughts and burning words of the missionary might pass, without the danger of their being strangled or quenched in the passage. It LECT. II.] Aidan. 69 was the king. Hearing the blessed words of the gospel in the language in which he had first heard it from the lips of those who had befriended him in his exile, he could give them forth in the language of his fathers and of the people whom he loved, and over whose salvation he yearned. And so from day to day there might be seen the humble missionary from lona, attended by the gallant king of Northumbria, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ. But Aidan was not the man to walk long on crutches, and he was not the man to care much for what was merely picturesque in the relation betwixt him and his royal interpreter. He therefore laboured hard in the acquisition of the language, and soon w^as able to walk on his own feet. His idea of a mission was founded entirely on the model of lona. He must have a monastery or settle- ment which should be a centre of influence, around which should cluster a Christian community, and from which the blessed light of the gospel should radiate into the surrounding darkness, and gradually dispel it. All the better if it were in some island, near enough to the mainland to be, to an lona boatman like him, virtually part of it, but yet so separated from it as that it should stand out and have a manifest existence apart from it. And this was found in the island of Lindisfarne, now called Holy Island, about two miles from Berwick. From this Northumbrian lona, Aidan 70 Medicsval Missions. went forth over the length and breadth of the land, no doubt possessing all the more influence over the people because they knew how high he stood in the estimation of the king whom they admired and loved ; but not trusting in an arm of flesh, but in the power of Him whose he was and whom he served. Dr. M'Lauchlan more than once calls attention to the courses pursued by Augustine and Paulinus on the one hand, and by Aidan on the other, as indicative of the spirit respectively of Eome and lona. ' "When Aidan was sent to preach the gospel to the northern Saxons, he fixed his residence in Lindisfarne, and thence went forth to preach the gospel to the surrounding population ; Lindis- farne, or the Holy Isle, becoming to the north of England what lona was to the north of Scotland. In this there was a marked difference between the emissaries of lona and those of Rome. When Augustine was sent from Rome, he seized upon Canterbury, in the very heart of one of tl)e richest counties of England, and there established himself. Paulinus, in like manner, settled in York, the capital of the noi'th of England. Thus did these men represent the ambitious, grasping spirit of their system, covetous of place and power ; while the humble missionaries of lona and Lindisfarne represented the spirit of their own system, covetous of exalting Christ and crucifying self. In nothing does the dis- tinction between the Church of Rome and the ancient Scottish church appear more clearly than in this.' Might it haply be that Ethelbert had heard some stories of the family of lona, and had formed from these his ideas of a missionary institution, and there- fore settled Augustine and his followers at first in the Isle of Thanet ? LECT. II.] Aldan. 71 The testimony borne by Bede to the work and cha- racter of Aidan is interesting and valuable, inasmuch as he was not disposed to look with favour upon any who disclaimed the authority of Eome. ' Among other formularies of life, he left to clerical persons a most wholesome example of abstinence or continence. This most of all commended his teaching to all men, that he taught in nothing otherwise than as he lived. For it was his care to seek and to love nothing of this world. All gifts that he received from kings or the rich of tlie world, he rejoiced to bestow upon the poor who came in his way. He used to hasten from place to place in town and country, not on horseback, but on foot, unless by chance some great necessity compelled him. Whenever in his way he saw any, whether rich or poor, he immediately accosted them, and invited them to receive the sacraments of the faith if they were unbelievers ; or if believers, he confirmed them in the faith, and by words and deeds stirred them up to almsgiving and the per- formance of good works. So far did his life differ from the sloth- fulness of our times, that all who walked with him, whether tonsured or laics, were obliged to meditate, that is, to occujiy themselves either with reading the Scriptures or learning the Psalms. This was his daily work, and that of all the brethren who were with him, wheresoever they came. And if by chance it happened (as, indeed, it happened rarely) that he was invited to the king's table, he went with one or two clerics, and after a brief repast, he quickly betook himself to reading with his friends, or retired to pray. . . . Never did he pass over in silence the faults of the rich for the sake of fear or favour, but corrected them with stern rebuke. It was his custom never to give any money to the powerful men of the world, excepting only their food, if he enter- tained any of them hospitably. On the other hand, the gifts of money which were lavished upon him by the rich, he either dis- tributed for the use of the poor, as we have said, or dispensed for the redemption of those who had been unjustly sold. And many whom he had thus redeemed he made his disciples, and trained and instructed for the priestly office. , , , As he was originally 72 Medicuval Missions. seat by those who appointed him to preach as being especially imbued with tlie grace of discretion, which is the mother of virtues, so, as time went on, he appeared adorned both with the moderation of discretion and with all other virtues.' Thus matters went on till the close of the seventh century. The whole of Scotland and the north of England was Culdee, or, as we might say, Protestant ; the midland and southern districts of England were Itomanist. This, of course, is a rough and general way of stating the matter. It is to be expected that the two parties were, especially on the border-lands, intermingled to a certain extent. The great contro- versy between the two parties related to the time of celebrating Easter, and the form of the clerical tonsure. But the incomparably greater question of the authority of Eome underlay these small applications of it. I cannot say that tlie Scottish party regarded these small questions as so small as we regard them, but they plainly perceived that the concession of these points would be an acknowledgment of an authority which their fathers had never known, and to which they were determined not to submit. The Eomanist party prevailed by little and little. Aidan was succeeded as abbot of Lindisfarne by Finnan, and he by Colman. Oswald was succeeded by his son Oswin, whose queen was a princess of Essex, and through her, says a German writer (Ebrard), Eomish priests found en- trance into Northumberland, and into its then capital, LECT. II.] Romish Aggressioji. 73 Edinburgh. In Ireland, too, there was a large sacrifice of the independence of the church of Patrick. At last Adamnan, a successor of Columba and his biographer, conformed to the Eomish order. But lona was too hot for him. He was obliged to resign his abbacy, and retire into Ireland, where submission to Rome had begun, and soon became absolute. The controversy was not at an end. Yea, it will never be at an end, while, on the one hand, Eome's pretensions remain unchanged, and while, on the other, tlie spirit of Christian freedom is not wholly extinct. But for dark centuries the power of Eome prevailed, until the spirit of Aidan was revived in Wickliffe, and later still the spirit of Columba took possession of Knox. From the beginning of the seventh century we must regard the British Islands as having ceased to be a theatre for missions, so far as heathenism is concerned. The invasion of the Danes did not very materially or permanently affect the condition of the people, or modify their religious profession. I have been obliged to dwell at considerable length upon the dissensions between the two parties of the old church in these islands. But I should be sorry to leave any impres- sion inconsistent with the strong conviction that there were multitudes of men and women in connection with both sections who received the truth of God in the love of it. The truth was less encumbered with error in the one section than in the other. But it is 74 Mcdiccval Missions. impossible to read the works of Bede, a strong adherent of the Eomanist section, without recognising him as a Christian man. And, doubtless, there were thousands and tens of thousands who then saw through a glass darkly, but who are now in the light of heaven seeing face to face. So it is in all the controversies which have been carried on in the church of Christ. Truth may be more on one side than on the other, and it is not for us to be indifferent to its preponderance on the one side. Truth is so precious, that its grains and its dust are grains and dust of gold. But never is truth defended in a perfect way, and never probably is error maintained without some admixture of truth. Some- times those who hold most of the truth lose the bless- ing of it through their inconsistencies ; and sometimes those who hold less of it shrink from the legitimate consequences of their errors. They have not light enough or courage enough to abandon their errors, yet they are saved in good measure from their deteriorat- ing influences. And it is not to be forgotten that the example of the undoubted zeal of these men ought to be all the more prevalent with us in proportion to the imperfection of the light and knowledge which they possessed. If they did so much with their obscure light, it may surely be expected that we should do more ; for unto whom much is given, of them much is required. With one obvious reflection I close this lecture, in LECT. II.] Conversion of Britain. 75 some respects the most interesting of our course. The grand principle of the missionary spirit is embodied in the precept, ' Freely ye have received, freely give.' As the grand impulse to individual evangelistic zeal is the sense of pardon received through the merits and bound- less love of our Lord and Saviour, so analogously a grand stimulus to energetic efforts for the evangelization of the nations is a sense of the obligation under which we lie to the efforts of others for the evangelizing of our native land. And so a contemplation of the con- dition in which the gospel found our fathers — whether Scots or Saxons — may well sustain our faltering faith. From all the attention that I have been able to give to the subject, I see no reason to believe that even the Britons with whom Csesar came into contact, — and these were only they who were to some extent under the influence of the superior civilisation of the neighbouring continent, — I see no reason, I say, to believe that the Britons, before the gospel was brought to them, were at all in advance of the Central African tribes in our own day, of whose condition we have been made aware by the descriptions of Livingstone and Stanley and Cameron. Let us look, then, to the rock whence we have been hewn, and the hole of the pit whence we have been dug. Such a view may well counteract any tendency to despair that might be induced by the contemplation of the degraded con- dition of any portion of our fellow-men, and of the 76 MedicBval Missions. difficulties which have to be surmounted ere men can be brought from the depths of barbaric degrada- tion to the height of civiHsation and inteUigence. The lever that raised Britain can bear the strain OF the world ; AND THAT LEVER WAS THE GOSPEL OF God's grace. LECTUEE III. IN my first lecture I drew a distinction between what I called, with reference to a recent contro- versy, the nationalistic and the individualistic modes of conducting missionary operations. I had no hesita- tion in expressing a very decided preference for the latter. Of course I am quite willing to admit — or rather, if it were controverted, I should very strenuously maintain — that the gospel is designed by its divine author, and is fitted by its character, to act upon men in masses, to mingle itself with, and to elevate and purify the social and national relations, and to convert the kingdoms of the world into the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. But the question is as to the order in which the objects are to be sought, which the gospel is designed and fitted to accomplish. What I asserted was, that they altogether err in their mode of operation who seek the national elevation as a means towards the individual conversion, instead of seeking the latter directly and constantly, trusting that the former will follow as a natural and necessary result. The two lectures already delivered evince that, in the period with which we have had to do, the nationalistic 78 Mediceval Missions. method of operation was characteristic of the Piomanist ecclesiastics and missionaries ; the individualistic, of the British and Irish or Scotch. Perhaps it mi^ijlit be necessary that the two methods should be prosecuted simultaneously ; and it may be that it was in order to effect this that the Ptomish missionaries were, in the providence of God, brought into Britain. It is very probable that, but for their advent, a much longer time would have elapsed before our beloved land had assumed a Christian aspect, and in that case a genera- tion or two would liave been without many advantages which they actually enjoyed through the prevalence of the habitudes of Christian life. On the other hand, I am persuaded that, had they never come at all, our fathers would have had a firmer grasp of the truth of God ; they would have more fully realized their per- sonal relation to the Saviour of men ; they would have resisted more strenuously the usurpations of Piome and the corruption of the gospel of Christ, and might possibly never have needed the tornado of the Eeforma- tion to purify the moral and spiritual atmosphere. Be this as it may, I think there can be no doubt that something of the spirit of lona was needed to modify the high thoughts and bring down the lofty imaginations of Ptheims and Aries ; and this leaven was early brought into contact with the mass of con- tinental Christianity. ' The Prankish church,' says an excellent English writer, ' was not destined to evan- LECT, III.] Scottish Missionaries. 79 gelize the rude nations of Europe. The internal dissensions and constant wars of the successors of Clovis were not favourable to the development of Christian civilisation at home, or its propagation abroad. Avitus of Vienne, Csesarius of Aries, and Taustus of Eiez, proved what might be done by energy and self-devotion. But the rapid accession of wealth more and more tempted the Frankish bishops and abbots to live as mere laymen, and so the clergy degenerated, and the light of the Frankish church grew dim. Not only were the masses of heathenism lying outside her territory neglected, but within it she saw her own members tainted with the old leaven of heathenism, and relapsing, in some instances, into the old idolatries. A new influence therefore was required, if the light of the Frankish church was to be rekindled, and the German tribes evangelized. And this new influence was at hand.' — (Madears Christian Missions of the Middle Ages.) Considering the abundant evidence that exists of the enormous amount of mission work done on the Continent by Irish and Scotch missionaries, it is not worth while to enter into discussions as to the nation- ality of this man or that, concerning whom there may be doubt as to his having belonged to this class, or his having been an indigenous preacher. But while this is so in the general, there are some exceptional cases in which such questions possess an altogether peculiar So Medi(^val Missions. interest. Such a case is that of one Fridolt or Fridolin; and the interest which attaches to it consists in this, that if he was one of the Scottish missionaries, then he was the earhest of whom we have any record, and probably, in point of fact, the first man that ever left these British shores in order to preach the gospel to heathens in a foreign land ; ^ the j)i"ecursor of the Careys and the Martyns, and the Duffs, the Williamses and the Livingstones, who have gone forth in later times to carry the gospel far hence among the Gentiles. It is not surprising, then, that the question of his nationality should have been discussed with some keenness. Briefly, the case stands thus : There is a Life of Fridolin, written by one Balthar, a monk who lived and w^rote early in the eleventh century. He states that the first part of it is the reproduction of an old Life, which he saw and read in a monastery in which he resided for a time as a guest. He was not allowed to remove it ; and he could not copy it, because he had neither parchment nor ink. He there- fore read it again and again, till he had committed it to memory, in great part verbatim, and in whole as regarded the sense. On returning to his own monas- tery he wrote the whole from memory ; and monks > Supposing that Pelagius was, as he is generally believed to have been, a native of Britain, it does not appear that he went to con- tinental Europe, and afterwards to Palestine, with a view to missionary work. I have not specially inquired into the matter, but my impres- sion is that he did not. LECT. III.] Fridolt. 8i who had seen another copy of the same Life which had once belonged to that monastery, but had been lost, testified that his transcript was substantially accurate. It needs not be said anywhere — and least of all in Edinburgh — that this is a kind of device to which writers of fiction have often had recourse, not always, indeed not generally, with a view to deception. That I'altliar's story of the MS. is merely such a device, and that his book is substantially a fiction, is strongly maintained by a critical German church historian, Eettberg, That the story is true, and that the book is no fiction, but a honCi fide biography of Fridolt, is as strongly, and, as I think, more conclusively, argued by an equally critical German church historian, Ebrard. If this latter judgment be correct, and if it be so that Balthar's book is credible as a biography, then Eridolt was an Irishman, a MsJio]) or cpisco-piis in his own country, who, after spending some time in Scot- land, went to France about the year 500, settled for a time at Poitiers, founded a monastery there, and laboured in the conversion of the Western Goths from Arianism. Then he left the abbacy of the monastery in the hands of two of his nephews, and with permis- sion of Clovis went to preach in the district of AYasgau on the Ehine. There he founded the monas- tery of St. Avoid, where Balthar says that he found the copy of the Life which he committed to memory. Afterwards he built a church in the city of Strasburg, F 82 Mcdiceval Missions. and last of all founded the monastery of Sackingen on an island in the Rhine, carrying out, so far as was possible, the Columban idea of an insular position for such an institution. It was to this monastery of Sackingen that Balthar belonged. There are in this statement several particulars which avouch their genuineness, by the manifest fact that Balthar did not really understand what he wrote. For example, his statement that Fridolin abandoned the episcopal office which he held in his own country, and condescended to occupy the condition of a priest, was to a Eomanist of the tenth century altogether so mar- vellous that he never could have made it spontaneously. But to us, who know that Fridolt, like his contemporary Patrick, must have regarded the episcopal and the presbyteral order as identical, and that he belonged to a church in which ahhot-'presbytcr and abhot-hisJiop were interchangeable terms, the statement is a perfectly intelligible and a perfectly natural one. Upon the whole, I think we ought to regard Fridolin as the first Scottish foreign missionary ; and that, accordingly, we ought to hold his memory in high esteem and venera- tion. The information that we possess regarding his doings is very scanty, and wliat tliere is of it is mixed with legendary matter, liegarding some others who are named as having come from Ireland or Scotland to labour as missionaries in France during the sixth century, we have still less, and less trustworthy, information. LECT. III.] Colwnbanus. 8 J But the most important contribution that these islands made to the evangelization of the European continent was undoubtedly the gift of Columbanus, Gallus, and their associates ; and upon their history I am now to dwell at considerable length. Columbanus, or Columba the younger, was born in Ireland in the year 559, of noble parents. His education was begun under a venerable abbot Senile, and was completed in the monastery of Bangor/ under Comgall. He seems to have developed a singularly precocious genius. While still very young he composed an exposition of the Book of Psalms, which is still extant, and portions of which have been published. In the preface or dedication he states that he composed it at the request of his teacher, who desired to have a version which should not be liable to objections that were made against the LXX. translation, as not fairly representing the Hebrew original. That an Irish lad, in the sixth century, should have even undertaken to translate the Scriptures from the Hebrew, in order to avoid the errors of the Alexandrian translators, is a somewlmt startling statement ; but there seems to be no good reason to doubt its truth. From two independent accounts, one English" and the other German,^ it would appear that this work was composed, not during 1 The scrupulously accurate Ebrard confounds this Irisli Bangor with that in AVales. 2 Maclear. ^ Ebrard. 84 Medicrval Missions. his residence in Bangor, but before his entrance into that monastery. I do not know on what original authority tliis statement rests, but if it be authentic, it makes his precocity all the more remarkable. He had not been long in Bangor when the desire was awakened in his heart to preach among the heathen the unsearch- able riches of Christ. Here, however, he had the same difficulties to contend with that have often threatened to bar the way of the young aspirant to this good degree. The same arguments and appeals that, uttered by a mother's lips and enforced by a mother's tears, have often tried the faith and the fortitude of one who has in the midnight silence heard in his inner soul tlie cry of tlie perishing : Come and HELP us, — these same arguments and these same appeals were addressed to Columbanus by his mother, and were seconded by the venerable Comgall, abbot of Bangor, who loved him with paternal fondness, and who had marked out for him a career of usefulness in his native land. But he had put his hand to the plough, and he would not, he could not, look back. As soon, therefore, as he had attained his thirtieth year, he and twelve like-minded associates bade fare- well to their country, expecting never to tread its green sod again, — an expectation which was realized by all of them whose history we are able to trace, and probably by the others also. In some notes tliat I made a few years ago I find it stated that, on leaving LECT, III.] Cohtmbantis. 85 IreLind, and on his way to the Continent, he and his band paid a visit to Columba at lona. But I have given no reference ; and I have searched in vain for the authority on which I made the statement. The nearest approach to it that I can find is this sentence of ]\Ir. Maclear : ' He had no sooner reached the age of thirty, than, selecting twelve companions, he bade farewell to his brethren, and after barely touching on the shores of pagan Britain, landed in Gaul.' One would like to picture a meeting, in such circumstances and at such a time, between these two men ; as one likes to think of the interview between ]\Iilton and Galileo, or to realize the scene ' where Jonson sat in Drummond's classic shades.' But if they met, it is likely that they did not meet as strangers ; or if Columbanus did not visit lona then, it is still likely that Columba and he were not strangers to each other ; for Columba was in Ireland just four years earlier, and it is almost certain that Columbanus would be introduced to him. The original design of Columbanus appears to have been to proceed into Southern Germany. But on landing in France he was welcomed by Guntram, a grandson of Clovis, who was now reigning in Bur- gundy. Guntram pressed him to remain among his people, and seems to have proposed to appoint him as a chaplain to his own household. But it was not the ambition of Columbanus to wear soft clothing and be 86 Mediccval Missions. in kings' houses. His mission was to the ignorant, the Ijarbarons, the heathen. His idea seems to have been, that the greater the difficulties were which had to be encountered in the establishment of a mission, the better it was for tliat mission. In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, this will be admitted by all. As it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth ; as the judicious father, in rearing the boy whom he would train to a vigorous and energetic manhood, is not careful to screen him from every blast that would dishevel his hair, and to spare him every exertion that would bring the sweat-beads to his brow : so does God usually deal with His children. He will have them become good, and ever and ever better, soldiers of Jesus Christ, therefore He calls them to endure hard- ness. He would have them lead lives of faith, and therefore He often puts them into positions in which they feel that it is by no might or power of their own, but by the Spirit of the Lord, that they are to prevail. About all this there will be no question among us. But it does not appear to have been only thus that Columbanus and his family regarded the most difficult and unpromising missionary field as the best, and the more unpromising as preferable to the more promising. And I do not see any reason to think that this arose from any idea of merit to be acquired by enduring trials and doing work of special difficulty. Eather it was because they considered that Christian life is a LECT. III.] Columbanus. 87 more important factor in efforts for the conversion of men to God than even Christian teaching. And they doubtless believed that while clearing the forest, culti- vating the barren soil, patiently enduring the extremes of cold and heat, singing praises ever to their God and Saviour, and ever making it manifest that even in cold and hunger and peril they had more joy from the light of the countenance of their God than abundance of corn and wine can afford to men of the world, they would have better opportunities of showing the heathen what the gospel could do for them than they could possibly have in positions of less difficulty and fewer privations. Accordingly, they resolved to settle among the Suevi, some of whom were heathens and some were Arians, and who inhabited the district called by the Germans Bodensee, and by the French Vosges. There they settled in the neighbourhood of what had once been a Eoman town called Anegrates, and founded the monastery of Anegray. Here they endured incredible hardships with incredible patience and fortitude, living sometimes on the bark of trees, and on such roots and wild herbs and berries as the untilled land and the woods supplied. I translate a paragraph in which Ebrard sums up the account given by the biographer of Columbanus : — 'There, in the forest -wilderness, -where men dwelt not, but wild heathen robber-hordes roamed, swarming with wild beasts, unhealthy and fever -breeding, he lived a life full of troubles 88 Medicsval Missions. anil privations, such tliat seventeen of his associates were cut off within twelve years. Witli their own hands must these servants of God rear for themselves poor huts, first on the ruins of a dismantled fort Anegrates, uow Anegray, and then upon those of another abandoned fort, Luxovium, now Luxeuil. With their own hands they must clear and cultivate a plot of ground ; and when the harvest was unpropitious, and the fishing failed in the brooks, often the direst want befell them, so that many a time they had nothing to eat but bark and weeds, or the small fruits which grow wild in the forest, called bollucie. But even in the bitterest necessities Columba's trust in God never failed, and his prayer of faith for help was always heard, and relief was granted ; now by means of a wanderer who brought bread and provisions with him ; now through presents which a Christian cleric, moved by a dream, sent into the desert; now through a successful take of fish, and such like.' It is very comfortable, no doubt, and very convenient, to exclaim, What folly ! and what self-righteousness ! That it was the perfection of wisdom I am not here to maintain ; but of self-righteousness I see not a trace. The folly or the wisdom depends upon the proportion betwixt the object sought to be obtained and the price paid for it ; and the valuation of the object and the price must be made in the currency of eternity. At all events, the object was not sought in vain. A Christian community of industrious peasants was formed ; those forests, where the wolves and the bears had their lairs, gave place to waving corn-fields ; and in the midst of the settlement was the monastery, where some of the family were hourly occupied in Christian worship and in Christian work. LECT. III.] Brtmehilde. 89 and whence daily the voice of Christian psalmody and Christian prayer ascended from numerous, and ever more numerous lips, and entered into the ear of the Lord of Sabaoth. When Anegray and Luxeuil were filled, and the district around them brought under agricultural and moral cultivation, there was an over- flow to Fontaines. But Luxeuil seems to have been the headquarters of Columbanus. But the brethren had other crosses to bear, other trials to endure, besides deficient harvests and unpro- ductive fishings. The Prankish clergy felt themselves rebuked by the zeal of the strangers, and they laid hold of the standing casus helli, the Easter-reckoning. It does not appear that the Irish colony attempted any propagandism in this matter. They were quite willing to allow their neighbours to observe their own day ; they only asked that equal liberty should be accorded to them to observe tlieirs. To this effect Columbanus addressed a noble letter to the pope, and another to a synod of Gallican bishops that was called to consider the matter. To neither pope nor synod did he give place by subjection for an hour, while to one and the other he showed a fine spirit of Christian meekness and Christian love. But he had not only to contend with an unspiritual and pharisaic clergy, but with a licentious court, and with an infuriated woman, and that woman a queen- mother. The divisions and unions, and re-divisions 90 MedicEval Missions. and re-unions of the descendants of Clovis, the un- natural wars in which brothers and cousins and nephews were engaged, it is fortunately no part of my province to detail. The glimmering of vague half- knowledge that I have been able to acquire by pro- tracted and wearisome study, it would be simply impossible to communicate to an audience. It is enough to say that Burgundy was now under the rule of Thierri, who was living a life of lawless profligacy, and whom his mother, Brunehilde, encouraged in his evil courses, in order to maintain her influence over him. The king apparently was ill at ease in that course of life, which yet he would not relinquish. It is difficult to say what it was in Columbanus that attracted him, but he often visited him. He quailed before the stern rebukes of the fearless monk, and ever promised reformation, which he never accomplished. Brunehilde saw that the influence of Columbanus over her son was gradually lessening her own. She brought the bishops to her aid, and they represented to the king the intolerable scandal that ensued from the Easter divergency. She invoked the nobles and cour- tiers, many of Mdiom, like herself, were the ministers of his unholy pleasures. They asked whether it were fitting that he, a crowned king, should be at the bidding of a wretched fanatic. At last the poor king so far gave way as to order Columbanus to be deported to Besan9on, there to wait further intimation LECT. III.] Columbanus. 91 of the royal will. He escaped from his guards, and returned to Luxeuil ; but he was again seized and sent off to Nantes. There he was put on board a ship bound for Ireland. A storm drove the ship upon the coast of Neustria, or Normandy ; and the captain, believing that the storm was sent in retribution for his taking part in the banishment of Columbanus, put him ashore and sailed without him. I find a story related of him at the time of his escape from Besan^on which is worthy of notice, as casting light on the state of matters : — ' After Columbanus was returned again to liis own Luxeuil from Besan(jon, whither he had been conveyed, Brunehilde and Theodoric (Thierri) sent a cohort thither, with orders to carry him back to Besancjon. The tribune with the soldiers rushes into tlie enclosures of the monastery. Columbanus is sitting in the hall of the church, reading in a book. More than once they go past him ; they almost tread upon him, but they see him not. At last comes the tribune himself, looks in through the window, and sees Columbanus sitting and calmly reading in the midst of the soldiers who are in quest of him. Then he orders the soldiers out, and says, "It is madness to expect to find one whom the power of God protects : Go back and tell the king that you have not found him." ' The good monk Jonas of Bobbio relates tliis with all simplicity, evidently believing, and expecting his readers to believe, either that Columbanus was miracu- lously rendered invisible, or that the soldiers were miraculously rendered blind. To me there seems nothing miraculous in it, nothing more wonderful than 92 Mediceval Missions. the proverbially wonderful Llindness of those who are unwilling to see. Thus viewed, the incident teaches us several things; as, for example, that this brave monk was a favourite with these brave Frankish soldiers and their captain, which is what we might have expected ; but, further, that the captain had a shrewd suspicion that the king himself had no very strong desire that Columbanus should be apprehended; that while he had, like another Herod, given up this stern prophet of the wilderness to the vindictive rage of his queenly foe, he was quite willing to wink at his escaping out of her hands, or even to aid his escape. When Columbanus was landed on the shore of Neustria (Normandy), he was cordially welcomed by the king, who beQ;cred him to remain in his territories, and promised him all facilities for prosecuting his work. But probably he found the Neustrians too civilised, or not in special need of his services. He therefore remained only a few days, and then took a long journey through Austrasia to the banks of the Ehine. Before this several brethren from Luxeuil, among whom was his right trusty and well-beloved Gallus, had joined him. They embarked on the Ehine, and sailed up it and its tributary, the Limmat, to the Lake of Zurich. At Tuggium, the modern Zug, they preached for a time to the pagan Suevi, bat apparently with but little success ; and it is very likely that they were somewhat too stern and severe LECT. III.] Bregenz. 92, in their dealings with these barbarians, and forgot the principle that a new patch may not be put on an old garment, nor new wine put into old bottles. After sundry wanderings, they fixed upon Bregenz, on the south-east side of Lake Zuricli, as the site of a mon- astery. Here they found a church which had fallen into decay, and had partly been reconverted into a lieathen temple ; for while it seems still to have been regarded as a Christian church, it contained three brazen idols, before which the people worshipped, and whose protection they sought as the tutelary genii of the place. These idols Colunibanus and his friends determined to remove ; and on a great festival day, when all the people were assembled, Gallus addressed them in their own language, which Columbanus ap- pears not to have been able to speak. He set forth the absurdities of heathenism, and proclaimed the glorious gospel of the grace of God. At the close he seized the idols and threw them into the lake. As might have been expected, a tumult ensued. Some admired the courage of the strangers, if they did not approve their deed. Some both admired and approved; others neither approved nor admired. Thus the multi- tude was divided ; but upon the whole, it would appear that a favourable impression was made. At all events, the work prospered at Bregenz. A Christian community clustered around the monastery, and the mountains and lakes of Switzerland were crladdened 94 Mediceval Missions. with scenes akin to those which were exhibited among the Grampians. Cohimbanus, however, did not remain lonjT in Breajenz, and I have not been able to ascertain why he left it. At all events, he took his departure in 612, leaving Bregenz under the abbacy of the faithful Gallus, and passed over into Italy. Here he was welcomed by Agilulf, king of the Lombards, and here he founded the monastery of Bobbio. Here he occupied himself mainly in study and contemplation, and in the composition of controversial treatises against Arianism. But his active life as a missionary was over, and his work done ; — good work well done. He lived only three years in Italy, and died in 615. No little obloquy, wholly undeserved, as I believe, has been cast on the memory of Columbanus, by the ascription to him of certain monastic regulations, some of which are very silly, and others are certainly not in the spirit of the gospel. Now it so happens that there are two altogether distinct Pailes which pass under his name. Of one of these, four MSS. are known to exist, and two of the other. The former is certainly authentic, and it is remarkable that there is nothing in it that is in the slightest degree offensive. On the contrary, it is said to breathe throughout a high tone of spiritual - mindedness. The other is altogether different, indeed quite opposite in its character, so that few critics would hesitate to pronounce, from internal evidence, that its author could not be the LECT. III.] Galhts. 95 author of the other. And the external evidence points to the same conclusion. Of the four mss. of the authentic work, two are preserved in the monasteries of Bobbio and St. Gall, the one founded by Colum- banus, and the other by Gallus. But the two mss. of the other Eule are found in Benedictine monasteries, and there is no trace of them in any Columban monastery. "We know that, at a later period, a keen contest was carried on all over Europe between the Columban and the Benedictine Eules. So far as I am able to judge, I think it highly probable that the so-called Regula Coendbialis Columbce, as distinguished from the Regula Columtm, was originally composed by some Benedictine as a je^t d'esprit, an extravagant caricature of the strictness of the Columban discip- line, — a caricature made very likely in all good nature, but which has had the unhappy effect of materially lowering the reputation of one of the great and good men, whose blessed memory is part of the patrimony of the church. When Columbanus left Switzerland it was intended that Gallus should accompany him into Italy, but he was prevented by a severe attack of fever from attempting such a journey. He therefore remained as superintendent of the Bregenz institution, which flourished under his care. Some time after he founded another monastery, which was called after his own name, St. Gall. In either place he continued the 96 MedicBval Missions. work whicli liis chief and he had begun in Luxeuil, clearing the forest, cultivating the waste, reclaiming the barbarian, and ever pressing home upon every lieart the duty at once and the blessedness of repent- ance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Once, on the occasion of a vacancy in the bishopric of Constance, he attended a great meeting of clergy and laity convened for the purpose of electing a bishop. With the solemnity of an aged apostle, with the authority of one whose high character was recognised by all, he set before the assembled brethren the solemn responsibility which rested upon them in the discharge of so important a duty. He dwelt upon the qualifica- tions which they ought to regard as indispensable in him that was to be elected. Unanimously the assem- bly came to the conclusion that nowhere were these qualifications to be found in so high degree as in him ; and he would have been elected by acclamation had he not at once interposed. ' Nay,' said he, ' there is a disqualification which is insuperable. I am a foreigner, ignorant of your language and of your national pecu- liarities. I cannot be your bishop.' This was not said in the usual Nolo cpiscopari style. G alius meant what he said, and his hearers knew that he meant it. But there was with him in the assembly a deacon named John, who had accompanied him thither. Him he very earnestly recommended as in every way quali- fied, and he was unanimously elected to the bishopric. LECT. III.] Gallus. 97 It has occurred to me as a very probable thing, that there was a reason for the declinature of the office by Gallus, and his recommendation of John to it, which either he did not state, or which has not been recorded by his Eomanist biographer. Whoever was made bishop must, of course, receive episcopal consecration. But Gallus doubtless held that he, a presbyter, was already a bishop ; and he could neither himself be consecrated as a bishop, nor be a party to the con- secration of any presbyter, without sanctioning the distinction between the bishop's and the presbyter's orders. But he could conscientiously recommend a deacon to receive what he regarded as simply ordina- tion to the elder's good degree ; and so he had no scruple in taking part in what was regarded by some as the consecration, but by him only as the ordination, of his friend. In tliis he acted very much in the spirit which was manifested by Knox long after, who heartily aided with his invaluable counsel and co- operation the English reformers, while yet his con- science would not allow him to accept the bishopric which was off'ered to him. At the consecration or ordination of his friend, Gallus preached a sermon which has come down to us, and forthwith returned to his monastery. The remainder of his days he spent there. Only once did he go to any considerable dis- tance from it, and to it he never returned ; for on his way home he was attacked with fever, and died G 98 Mediceval Missions. (a.d. 627). ' His/ says Mr. Maclear, 'had been a life eminent for self-denial and usefulness. He had re- vived the faith of the ancient see of Constance ; he had reclaimed from barbarism the district bordering on the Black Forest ; he had taught the people the arts of agriculture as well as the duties of religion ; and the humble cell of the apostle of Switzerland became after his death the resort of thousands of pilgrims, and was replaced by a more magnificent edifice, erected under the auspices of Philip St. Heristal, which, during the ninth and tenth centuries, was the asylum of learning, and one of the most celebrated schools of Europe.' It would not be consistent with truth to say, and it would not be believed if it were said, that Colum- banus and Gallus were but average specimens of the Irish and Scotch and Northumbrian missionaries who did so great a work on the continent of Europe. They were leaders of the host; it was enough if the host were worthy of such leaders. And of so much there is abundant and superabundant evidence. As to the numbers who went forth from our shores, we have no means of forming an accurate estimate ; but the numbers were certainly very great. They were inime- rous, says one, as the swarms of bees. They seem generally to have gone in companies either of twelve or of thirteen. Columbanus casually mentions that, in the course of twelve years, seventeen of his brethren LECT. III.] Organization. 99 died by his side in the wilderness. Now this is far too small a number to include all the deaths that occurred in his large community during that time. He must therefore have meant his fellow-labourers, his brother -missionaries. But the whole band that originally accompanied him from Ireland consisted of twelve. The ranks must therefore have been recruited from time to time. This is an important fact, because it is fitted to correct an impression which is apt to be made by the scanty records which we possess of these missions. These records very generally amount to little more than this, that this man or that came from Ireland with twelve brethren, and founded a monastery at this place or that. Now one reading such statements is apt to take up an idea that the efforts were of an extremely desultory and unconnected character ; and I have no doubt that, as compared with our modern missions, under the direction of church-committees and missionary societies, these early missions were defective in organization. But, if I put a correct interpretation on the language of Columbanus, there must have been some kind of organization w^itli a view to co-operation ; thus the home church would be kept in sympathy with her sons who had gone forth from her, and the unity of the church would be realized in the experience of her members. The men of w^hom I have hitherto spoken have been pretty much of the same type ; grave, earnest, I oo MedicEval Missions. strong -mincled and strong -bodied men; strong to do and strong to suffer ; confident tliat God was for them, and well-nigh indifferent as to who or how many might be against them ; men so fearing God as to be free from all other fear. No doubt this was the type of man that was specifically needed to do the kind of work that was then chiefly to be done. But in the great house of God there are at all times both vessels of gold and silver, and vessels of wood and stone, ay, and vessels too of fragile glass, which might seem too delicate for household work. And all have their place, and all their use. The body of Christ requires not only strong arms and toil -browned hands, and feet able to tread the miry way and the thorny waste, but a heart to throb in sympathy with all suffering and with all joy, and eyes to weep over the sorrows of little children, and to beam with joyous laughter on the sight of childish play. As a specimen of a very different sort of men from Columba and Aidan, and Columbanus and Gallus, I should like to say a little of one Fursffius, although I do not know much of any work that he did on the Continent, and, indeed, I do not think that he did much in comparison with what these others did. His work was mainly in England. But I introduce a notice of him here, mainly, as I have said, by way of showing that as God gives infinite diversities of gifts and graces, so He can use all in His sreat work of the world's evanGjelization. For LECT. III.] Fursams. lOi this, after all, is the great lesson which the church of this day needs to learn, that God's call is to all His people to come to His help against the miglity ; that none are exonerated from the duty, none are debarred from the unspeakable privilege, of being fellow-workers with Him. It is chiefly from Bede that we get any knowledge of Fursaeus, and the account that I shall now present to you I shall partly translate and partly abridge from him. I cannot introduce it without an acknowledgment of the remarkable honesty with which this earnest Eomanist records the good deeds and commends the virtues of one whom he must have regarded as a schismatic at least, if not even as a heretic. During the reign of Sigbert (king of East Anglia) there came from Ireland a holy man called Fursteus, famous in word and deed, distinguished by excellent virtues, desiring to lead a wandering life for the Lord, wheresoever he might find opportunity. When he came to the province of the Eastern Angli, he was received with honour by the king aforesaid ; and engaging in his usual work of evaugelizing, he con- verted to Christ many unbelievers by the example of his virtue and the excitement of his speech, and con- firmed believers more in the faith and love of Christ. When he was seized with a certain bodily disease, it was vouchsafed to him to enjoy an angelic vision, in which he was admonished to attend diligently upon I02 Mediceval Missions. the ministiy of the word which he had undertaken, and to ply unweariedly his accustomed watchings and prayers. We are then told that he hastened to establisli a monastery at a place called Cnobbersburg. This man — I again translate — was of the noblest Scottish extraction, but far nobler in mind than in the flesh. From his very boyhood he gave extraordinary attention to sacred readings and to monastic exercises ; and as most becometh saints, he scrupulously took heed to do all things which he had learned to be proper to be done. In short, as time went on, he constructed a monastery for himself, in which he might more freely attend to heavenly studies. There, being seized with disease, he was rapt away from the body ; and being separated from the body from evening to cock-crow, it was vouchsafed to him to behold the faces and to hear the blessed praises of the angelic hosts; and he used to tell that he distinctly heard them utter this among others, ' The saints shall go from strength to strength ; ' and again, ' The God of gods shall be seen in Sion.' Three days after he was again in an ecstasy, and had a revelation of the contests between the good and tlie evil angels for the salvation or the destruction of the souls of men. Then he was taken up aloft, and saw four fires ready to break forth to burn up the earth — the fires of falsehood, of avarice, of dissension, and of impiety. He saw also the sufferings of souls, and their defence by the good angels. He had also ' a LECT. III.] FurscBus. 103 sight of Scottish men of his own nation, of whom he had ascertained through common report that they had not ignobly possessed the sacerdotal grade.' And so on to great length, telling of the future state of the righteous and the wicked. I introduce this merely to indicate what manner of man he was — an enthusiastic visionary. But it is interesting, because it is said that Bede's record of his visions did much toward the formation of the doctrine of purgatory. Thus an English historian of high name traces the doctrine to him : — ' The stranger on the dark marshy shores of the oozy Yare, contemplating the lichen - encrusted ruins of the Koman castramentation, Burgh Castle, or Gariornonum, scarcely supposes that those grey walls once enclosed the cell of an obscure anchorite, destined — so strangely is the chain of causation involved — to exercise a mighty influence equally upon the dogma and genius of Eoman Christendom. This was the Milesian Scot Fursasus, who, received in East Anglia by King Sigbert, there became enrapt in the trances which disclosed to him the secrets of the world beyond the grave. Theologically, the development of these opinions concerns us not. But theology was as the sap flowing into all the branches of human literature ; and Furstieus kindled the spark which, transmitted to the inharmonious Dante of a barbarous age, occasioned the first of the metrical com- positions from whose combination the Divina Commedia 1 04 MedicEval Missions. arose.' It is not for me here, and now, to express acquiescence in, or dissent from, the estimate of Dante. Bede goes on to tell how Fursteus, being distracted by the incursion of the heathen, and seeing that danger was impending over the monasteries, arranged all his affairs and set sail for Gaul ; that there he was honourably received by Lotharius, king of the Franks, and by a nobleman, Helionvaldus ; that he built a monastery at a place called Latiniacum ; that he died not long after, and that his body was found many years after to have been kept free from corruption. Scattered up and down through Ebrard's work there are fragmentary notices of the monastic life of Fursffius at Laguy (Latiniacum) ; as, for example, ' that he had with him very reverend and spiritual men, who profited much by the example of such a man, both in monastic probation, and in diverse labours of life, and in the grace of humility and charity.' I may mention also that Ebrard repeatedly speaks, in stronger terms than I should think of using, of the simplicity and beauty of his visions as recorded by Bede. I repeat, however, that I have introduced his name for the one purpose of showing that there were men of very diverse qualifications, who all found that in the mission-field there was room for all and need of all. The whole of the mission work of which we have hitherto spoken was carried on within the limits of LECT. III.] Severmus. 105 the Frankisli kingdom. In the German provinces there was no such central event as the conversion of Clovis to give consolidation and unity to the efforts of evangelists. Before the irruption of the barbarians, the state of matters was probably very much like what I have described as existing in France and Britain during the subsistence of the Eoman Empire ; perhaps with this difference, that the Eoman power, I suspect, had not been so universally acknowledged, and consequently the Eoman civilisation and the Christian religion had not been so widely operative. Up till a time when the gospel had been very generally received in France, there appear to have been none but isolated and desultory efforts in Germany. In speaking of Patrick, I expressed regret that he lived before the period that falls within my province, as I should have liked to have had an opportunity of detailing the doings of such a man. I make the same remark regarding Severinus, who laboured in Pannonia, a part of the modern Bavaria, in the latter half of the fifth century, No one knew who he was or whence he came, and he constantly refused to give any information respecting his previous history. He found the country in a state of turmoil and confusion, and he set himself with amazing energy and unwearied patience to lessen the evils which could be lessened, and to comfort the people who groaned under those that were inevitable. Never 1 06 Mediaeval Missions. have I heard or read of more energetic labours, more cheerfully endured privations, more absolute renuncia- tion of self, more single-minded devotion to the glory of God and the good of men. ' All,' says Mr. Maclear, ' were won by the attractive power of his love, by the sincerity and devotion of his life. The sick in their afflictions, the penitent in their remorse, rough soldiers in time of danger, sought his counsel ; some he healed, others he advised, all he comforted. Such was his influence, that barbarian chiefs consented at his instance to spare beleaguered towns, to restore captives, and to refrain from cruelty. Even the garrisons of Eoman fortresses implored his presence among them, believing that thus they were protected from harm. On one occasion the king of the fierce Allemanni approached the town of Passau, threatening to besiege it. In their alarm the inhabitants sought the aid of Severinus, whose cell was close by the con- fluence of the Inn and the Danube. He went forth to meet the king, with whom he was not altogether unacquainted. The reverence of the latter for the man of God was so great, that he not only did not dare to attack the town, but abstained from laying waste the neighbouring territory, and restored the captives he had taken.' It was on the first day of the year 482 that this grand man's earthly course was ended. Strong men were standing around his deatli-bed, rough and blood-stained barbarians gazed LECT. III.] Amandus. 107 wonderingly on. But the strong men were weak as women under their strong grief, the rough and rude were for the time refined under the influence of sympathy and sorrow. He desired the bystanders to sing a psahn, but their hearts were too full — the great lump was in their throats. Then he himself took up the strain, and died with the words on his tongue : ' Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord.' It was professedly to take up the work of Severinus that, a century and a half later, a mission was sent from Luxeuil, the monastery of Columbanus. We know little of the history of this mission, excepting that it was sent under the leadership of Eustasius, the abbot of Luxeuil ; that he was accompanied by Agilus and others ; that he converted ' very many ' of the Bavarians to the faith ; that he founded a monastery, and then returned to Luxeuil. Ebrard conjectures that this was about A.D. 618 or 619. On the other side of Germany, in the country of Frisia, which included not only the modern Friesland, but also some portions of the modern Belgium, there were various missionary operations carried on at an early period of the seventh century. Amandus was born near Nantes about the close of the sixth century. He chose the clerical profession, and for a long time led a wandering sort of missionary life. On a visit to Eome he received from the pope a roving commission, io8 Medi(2val Missions. under the designation of a regionaiy bishop. After holding the somewhat anomalous position for twenty years, he was appointed to the see of Mastricht in 647. He stood high in the favour of the Frankish king, Dagobert, from w^hom he received a commission, authorizing him to compel the people to submit to baptism. It was probably by the execution of this commission, rather than by reasoning of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, that he brought down upon himself the wrath of the people, which we shall probably be disposed to think that he well deserved. ' In endeavouring,' says Neander, ' to carry this command into execution, and to preach to the peojDle, who, as it may well be supposed, could derive but little benefit from preaching backed by such forcible measures, he exposed himself to the most violent persecutions and ill-treatment, and sometimes to the peril of his life. Yet he endeavoured also to win the affections of his hearers by acts of benevolence. He redeemed captives, instructed and baptized them.' I find mention made (Rettberg, ii. 507) of the con- version of a man of wealth, one Allowin, who after- wards took the name of Bavo, built two monasteries, and acquired fame as an ascetic and a saint. In C49, Amandus resigned the bishopric of Mastricht, on account, it is said, of differences wdth his clergy, and betook himself again to a wandering life. I should mention that Ebrard represents the difficulties of LECT. III.] Eligms. 109 Amandus to have arisen mainly from his zeal in attempting to Eomanize the clergy, who held by the spiritual freedom and independence derived from Columbanus. Be this as it may, it is evident from his history that he was not altogether worthy of his name, while it ought to be admitted that he was a zealous and fearless man, who acted according to his light in a determined and abundantly energetic way. A bishop of a far higher order laboured in another district of the same country. Eligius was a goldsmith, who, by great skill in his art, and by great integrity of conduct, stood high in the favour and confidence of Clotaire l., a Prankish king. As court jeweller he made a large income, which he spent freely in works of religion and charity. While working at his art, he always had a Bible lying open before him. ' He made use of his Christian knowledge, in which he excelled many of the clergy, to further the religious instruction of the people.' We sometimes speak as if the influence of laymen, and the value of their aid in the work of the church and of missions, were a discovery of our own times. Here we have a layman of the seventh century abounding in all the good works which are still, alas ! exceptional among our laymen of all ranks. I may just say in passing that the life of this man is well worthy of earnest study, and that a good service would be done by any one who should render his life generally accessible. It may be questioned whether a 1 1 o Mediceval Missions. man occupying so influential a position, and occupying it so nobly, would not have acted judiciously had he abode in his calling. But he did not think so. He abandoned his secular employment, and in 6-il became ' bishop over the extensive diocese of Ver- mandois, Tourney, and Noyon, the boundaries of which touched on pagan tribes, while its inhabitants were many of them still pagans, or new converts, and Christians only in name.' Here he laboured for eighteen years, a noble specimen of the mediseval missionary. His doctrine was thoroughly evangelical ; his zeal, animated by that doctrine, was unquenchable; and his whole bearing was that of a sinner saved by grace, and constrained by the love of Christ, because he thus judged, that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again. In an old and very rare book by Camerarius, I find Eligius mentioned as one of the Scottish missionaries. He may have been, but I do not know on what authority the statement rests. Very likely he was a Scottish missionary, in the sense that he had received his knowledge of the gospel from the disciples of Columbanus, who by this time were spread in great numbers over the country. He might thus be called a Scottish missionary, though he were not a Scottish man. LECT. III.] Clement. 1 1 1 And now Frisia became the field of another class of missionaries, those who went forth from the Augustinian Church of England. In last lecture I intimated that this church gradually gained the ascendant over the Irish- Scottish Church of Northumbria and East Anglia. Before the close of the seventh century they sent multitudes of missionaries to Frisia. Of these the most noted is Willebrord. He was a Northumbrian, but an adherent of Eome. In 692, he went with eleven companions to Friesland, the greater part of which had just, by the conquests of King Pepin, be- come French territory. Pepin gave him full permission to labour in his kingdom, but first sent him to Eome to obtain the blessing of the pope. After four years of zealous and successful labour, Pepin again sent him to Eome, with the request that he should be raised to the episcopal office. This request was granted, and Willebrord, who took the name of Clement, returned as bishop of Wiltzburg. He gave himself up heart and soul to his work, and in the midst of much oppo- sition did zealously the work of an evangelist. He even made an attempt to introduce the gospel into Denmark, and escaped narrowly with his life. Eeturn- ing to his diocese, he continued to labour with equal zeal and with much success. Multitudes of his Anglo-Saxon brethren joined him, and under his direc- tion pushed out into the regions beyond. Altogether, I doubt whether England, in these days of ours, with 1 1 2 MedicBval Missions. all her enormous wealth, with the ordinances of the gospel supplied to her people at home in abundance or superabundance, with all the mysterious workings of providence which have given to so much of the heathen world so strong a claim on her sympathy and her aid, sends forth so many missionaries to all the world, as England, in the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth century, sent to Frisia alone. Of this I am sure, that from all our Scottish churches there do not go forth as many heralds of salvation as went forth from our shores in the beginning of the seventh century. It is a solemn question which we all have to answer before God : Why is this ? By far the most distinguished of these Anglo- Saxon missionaries was Winfrid, whose missionary career began and ended in Frisia, although the greater portion of it was spent in other parts of Germany. Winfrid was born at Crediton, in Devonshire, of an old and noble family, about the year 680. Although he was designed for a secular career, yet from his boyhood his heart was set on a monastic life. He was educated in a conventual house at Exeter, and there he remained till his thirtieth year ; by which time he had acquired such a renown for diligence and devotion, for deep knowledge of the Scriptures, and for power in preaching, that the way was open for him to the highest ecclesiastical preferment in his own land. But his heart was set upon not building on LECT. III.] Boniface. 113 other men's foundations. He therefore went over into Frisia, and spent some months there ; but he lost heart when he saw the difficulties that had to be encountered, and returned to his monastery. But the fire of missionary zeal which had been kindled in his heart would not be extinguished, and soon he returned to the Continent ; but this time he resolved to seek tlie consent and blessing of the pope. With this view he went to Eome, and was cordially welcomed by Gregory 11. From him he received a commission, and letters addressed to many civil and ecclesiastical rulers, authorizing him to preach the gospel all over Germany. Thus accredited, he returned to Frisia. Here Willebrord was getting old, and was extremely desirous that his energetic countryman should be nominated as his successor in the see of Utrecht. But to this he would not consent; and as he had before fled from Frisia on account of the difficulties and the dangers which beset the work there, so now he fled from it because of the honours that were attempted to be thrust upon him. And now began a life of unsurpassed laboriousness, and of most earnest conten- tion with heathenism on the one hand, and with Culdeeism on the other. Rejoicing in his success in contending with the former, and deploring his success in contending with the latter, I can but express ad- miration of the genuine English courage and invincible perseverance which he brought to bear on his twofold 114 MedicBval Missions. object, the Christianizing and the Eomanizing of Ger- many. After four years' labour, a report reached Eome that he was not altogether sound in the faith. The pope therefore summoned him to Eome to give account of his doctrine. He not only succeeded in vindicating his orthodoxy, but made so favourable an impression on the pope, that he invested him with the episcopal office. He now took the name of Boniface, and re- turned to his work with redoubled zeal. Now we see him as the earnest preacher, entreating sinners to be reconciled to Christ, and Christians to walk worthily of their holy name ; now with axe in hand, plied with his sturdy English arms, like another Jerubbaal, hewing down a great tree sacred to Thor ; now set- tling questions of casuistry respecting the validity of irregularly administered baptism ; and on one occasion venturing in a letter to rebuke very sternly the pope himself for the abuses which, as he had heard, were tolerated in Eome, Among all the men with whom we have had to do in this brief chronicle, there is no one who displayed more admirable qualities as a man than Bishop Boniface. These were the qualities of a Christian and an Englishman, and they could not be neutralized by the unchristian and un-English peculiarities of the Eomanist bishop. It is said that in the course of about twenty years he baptized about 100,000 of the pagan inhabitants of Germany. Although this number is probably very much exag- LECT. III.] Boniface. 115 gerated, and although such wholesale baptisms are not an unmixed good, yet it is evident that it was by his zeal, combined with a singular faculty of organizing, that Germany became a professedly Christian land. The remnants of heathenism were put down by Charle- magne by penal laws and the edge of the sword. When Boniface felt the enfeebling effect of old age, he withdrew to the monastery of Fulda, which he had founded, and where he desired to spend in contempla- tion the last days of a life of such vigorous action. But the paddocked war-horse scented the battle from afar. The hero of so many victories brooded over the shame of his one defeat in Frisia. He remembered that forty years ago he had fled ingloriously from the held, and he must wipe out the stain by victory, or by death on the field. He seemed to have a presentiment that he would never return, and therefore he ordered a shroud to be packed up along with the books and the relics which he was accustomed to take with him on his journeys. Thus equipped, and attended by ten clerics and forty laymen, he proceeded on his journey ; and on arriving at its end, he and his companions set to work. For a time they preached with success, made many converts, and laid the foundations of several churches. But on a June Sabbath morning he was awakened by the noise of an advancing multitude, and, looking forth from his tent, he perceived that they came with no friendly intent. The fact was that the heathen tribes. 1 1 6 MedicEval Missions. enraged at tlie success of the veteran missionary, Lad determined to take summary revenge. Some of the bishop's people counselled resistance, and were pre- paring to defend themselves, when he stepped forth from his tent, and commanded that no weapon should be uplifted, but that all should calmly receive the crown of martyrdom. His followers caught the infec- tion of the old hero's bravery, and calmly awaited the onset of their foes. They were not kept long in sus- pense. The exasperated heathen deemed that they were doing good service to their ancestral gods in shedding the blood of those who had opposed their worship. When Boniface saw that his turn had come, he took a volume of the Gospels and laid it as a pillow for his head, and stretched forth his neck for the fatal blow, which was forthwith struck. Thus, at the age of seventy-five, with his head pillowed on the Gospels, and I doubt not with the gospel in his heart, the grand veteran wiped off the early stain from his shield, and being faithful unto death, received the crown of life. The conquests of Charlemagne, a lineal descendant of Clovis, and the repressive measures which he adopted in opposition to heathenism and heresy, com- pleted the external conversion of central Europe. These measures we cannot vindicate ; to only a very limited extent can we apologise for them, on the ground that the doctrine of toleration and liberty of conscience LECT. III.] A latin. 1 1 7 has ever been a plant of tardy growth. It is interest- ing to know that an English ecclesiastic, Alcuin, who stood high in favour with this emperor, and exercised great influence over him, used that influence to dissuade him from persecution, and to inculcate upon him faith in the cross as the wisdom and power of God, and in the efficacy of those weapons which are not carnal but spiritual, but which are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. LECTUEE IV. HITHEETO we have liad to do mainly with the barbarous nations who had overrun the Eoman Empire, and who were to a considerable extent brought under the influence of those whom they had con- quered, who were not unwilling to adopt their civili- sation, and not very much disinclined to make an outward profession of the religion which they generally professed. It may be safely said that their disinclina- tion was all the less because that religion was generally little more than an outward profession, and a formal and gorgeous ceremonialism. There was little, alas ! to repel the corrupt heart of man in the prevalent Christianity of the empire. It was a religion of the empire, much more than a religion of the heart and of the life. Eequiring and insisting upon a certain recognition of its ordinances, satisfied with a very limited knowledge of its doctrines, setting up a false and unnatural standard of imaginary perfection to be aimed at and attained by a few, it cared little to exercise a sanctifying influence over the hearts of men, and to direct and control them in the relations and avocations of social and political and military life. LECT. IV.] Corruption. 1 19 It was the monks' part to pray and fast, and lead a life of ascetic pietism and constrained devotion. It was the part of the kings and the nobles to lavish gifts and endowments, and to afford facilities for the performance of these duties by the monks. It was the part of all to attend upon occasional services of ritual and pomp ; but it was not expected of the politician, the statesman, or the warrior, or of the peasant or the serf, to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with his God. We must regret this, but we must accept it as a historic fact. We may wonder that God should have permitted it to be so ; but with our wonder we must mingle reverent adoration of that providential wisdom, which allowed an imperfect and deformed Christianity to supersede and bring to an end the abominations of heathenism, and then in its own good time, by means of the blessed Eeformation, and by means of various influences that have power- fully operated from time to time, and which are more or less powerfully operating always, has purified that Christianity from the admixture of earthliness which defaced and deformed it. And then I have a stronger conviction than probably I have been able to com- municate to you, of the extent to which the Irish or Scottish element, transfused into the blood-current of the continental church, imparted to it a measure of vitality and spiritual strength, and retarded the process of deterioration which it could not prevent, and which I 20 Mediceval Missions. eventually issued in the full development of the mystery of iniquity. We have now to turn our eyes to those northern European lands which had never been overshadowed by the Eoman eagle's wing ; where unmitigated bar- barism reigned, unassuaged by any admixture of Eoman civilisation ; where heathenism held undisputed sway over the minds of the people, untempered even by the vicinity of diffused Christianity. Speaking generally, we may say that these lands lie all around the Baltic Sea, and include the modern Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Poland, and the enormous Russian Empire, stretching from the Baltic on the north-west to the Euxine or Black Sea on the south- east. To these countries in their order we shall now ask your attention, and shall endeavour to give such a general idea of their conversion to the Christian faith as we can present in a single lecture. In the middle age geography, the country which is now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, was called Scandinavia. As early as the seventli and eighth centuries its inhabitants had become the torment of their neighbours, the French, the Germans, and the English. Large in stature, hardy by their mode of life, savage in their manner of conducting war, pirates at sea, robbers by land, their hand was against every man, and the hand of every man who dared encounter them was asrainst them. We hear of the forebodinfrs LECT. IV.] Willebrord. 1 2 1 of Charlemagne in his last days, that is, early in the ninth century, regarding them, and these were gloomy enough, and they were realized in the endless conflicts in which his successors were embroiled with them. In my last lecture I mentioned in a single sentence an attempt of Willebrord to introduce the gospel into Denmark. He was unable to remain there, but it is said that he purcliased thirty youths, baptized them, and took them with him into Frisia, that they might be educated, and in due time sent back as missionaries to their countrymen. While on his way back from Denmark, he very nearly attained what he would have regarded as the glory of martyrdom. He was driven by a storm on the coast of an island called Fosetes- land, which is understood to have been the modern Heligoland. This island was so sacred that the waters of a holy well must not be polluted, nor the cattle that grazed its fields be slain. The distressed mariners were ignorant of this, or, if they knew it, they dis- regarded it. They slew some of the cattle, and Willebrord baptized three of his Danes in the sacred well. The sentence was passed that one of the offenders should die. The sentence was carried into execution, the victim being determined by lot. The intrepid bearing of Willebroixi on the occasion, and the uncompromising way in which he denounced the superstition of the people, and urged them to accept the gospel of Christ, made a favourable impression 1 2 2 MedicBval Missions. upon Eadbod, the king or chief of the island. Nothing seems to have been done for some time. But in 822, Harold, the king of Jutland, and claimant of the crown of Denmark, came to seek the help of Louis the Pious, the son, and one of the successors, of Charle- magne. Louis agreed to espouse his cause, and sent an army to place him on the throne. He had also in his train Ebbo, the archbishop of Eheims, and primate of France, and Halitgur, bishop of Cambray, and a retinue of other missionaries, who thought this a provi- dential opening for the introduction of the gospel. Little success appears to have attended their labours among the people. But after three years Harold came back to France, and Ebbo accompanied him. It does not appear clearly what was the state of Harold's mind at this time, — whether he had resolved to make profession of the gospel, and thought it not expedient to do so in the first instance among his own people, or whether it was during his stay in France that he came under the power of the gospel. At all events, he was baptized in the cathedral of Mayence, and along with him his queen, his son, and several of his courtiers. This baptism of Harold could not, in the nature of things, be expected to be so pregnant of results as that of the Frankish chief to which I devoted so large a portion of my first lecture. But as a missionary, and as one who has had a good deal to do with the study LECT. IV.] Kings of Denmark. 123 of mission history, I must be allowed to dwell for a moment upon the conversion of this Danish king. So far as I am aware, there is no roll of sovereigns who have done so much for the spread of the gospel, and done it so much in the spirit of the gospel, as the kings of Denmark since the Eeformation, It was by the aid of the Danish king that the Moravians were enabled to introduce the gospel into the West Indies and into Greenland. It was the King of Denmark that devised and carried out the first Protestant mis- sion to India. It was in his small territory of Tran- quebar that Ziegenbalg and Plutsko unfurled the glorious banner of the Captain of salvation. And it was the King of Denmark, too, that took under the protection of his flag, in his small territory of Seram- pore, that noble band of Englishmen, whom their own countrymen, in base cowardice, dared not allow to preach the gospel of the grace of God within their territory ; and very nobly did the small potentate of Serampore defy the great potentate of Calcutta, and refuse at his bidding to violate his promise and pledge of hospitality. Believing as we do that those who honour God, God wdll honour, we might perhaps have expected that Denmark should have been rewarded by extension of territory and by an increase of influence among the nations of Europe. But although this has not been, and may haply never be, yet none the less may we be convinced that God is not unfaithful to 1 24 MedicEval Missions. forget any work and labour of love. We trust it may be long hence, but the day will come when descendants of these Danish kings shall wear the crown of Britain, and wield the imperial sceptre of India. And when that day comes, their rule over these subject millions shall be all the more blessed and all the more pro- sperous because their maternal ancestors, small as they were in earthly resources but strong in faith, scorned and put to shame the timid policy of their paternal. And even now, the amiable mother of the first of that line of future kings, Denmark's daughter and Den- mark's princess, whom England has adopted and loves as her daughter and princess too, when she thinks of the tremendous responsibilities that are to devolve upon the boy whom she so lately dandled on her knee, and like any joyous young peasant mother carried upon her shoulders, may well be sustained by the reflection that when these responsibilities shall come upon him, he shall not have to rule a wholly heathen land, but shall have daily offered for him the prayers of myriads, and ere then it may be millions, of Christian subjects. On Harold's return to Denmark he was accompanied by Anskar, who well deserves to be called the apostle of Scandinavia. Anskar was born in 801. His pious mother strove to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. At an early age he was sent for education to the monastery of Corbie, which was LECT. IV.] A7iskar. 125 then ill high repute, both for tlie piety and the learning of its monks. What progress Anskar made in learning we have no means of ascertaining ; but during a long life of labour and hardship he gave evidence of fervent and intelligent piety. Once during his boyhood he saw Charlemagne in all the pomp of his personal grandeur and imperial magnificence. Then not long after there came to Corbie the tidings of his death and his unnatural entombment, doubtless substantially as it is described to us by an English writer : — ' In the gallery of the Basilica he had erected his marble throne, covered with plates of gold, studded with Greek cameos and astral gems from Nineveh or Babylon. Before that throne were the stairs descending to the sepulchre which he had already dug deep for himself in the holy ground, even when he raised tliat marble throne. Soon afterwards the huge broad flagstone which covers the vault was heaved up ; there they reverently deposited the embalmed corpse, surrounded by ghastly magnificence, sitting erect on his curule chair, clad in his silken robes, ponderous with broidery, pearls, and osfray, the imperial diadem on his head, his closed eyelids covered, his face swathed in the dead-clothes, girt with his baldric, the ivory horn slung in his scarf, his good sword Joyeuse by his side, the Gospel-book open on his lap, — musk and amber and sweet spices poured around, — his golden shield and golden sceptre pendant before him.' It is not surprising that the contrast between the noble features, and stately form, and kingly magnifi- cence which he had seen, and the ghastliness of death of which he now heard, made doubly or tenfold ghastlier by the futile attempt to bedizen it with the semblance of life and royal state, should have made 126 Medics val Missions. a great impression upon the mind of a nervous boy. Anskar was thirteen years old when Charlemagne died, and from that time he gave himself up with absolute unreserve to the service of God. Ascetic as he was constitutionally and educationally, and over- estimating, as he did all his days, the virtue of wearing a haircloth shirt by night and day, there was a practical element in his devotion which is often wanting in that of the ascetic. His enthusiastic mind glowed with the ambition of preaching the gospel to the heathen, and haply gaining even the supreme honour of the martyr's crown. When Ebbo instituted inquiries after one who might fitly be sent to Denmark with Harold, Anskar was brought under his notice by the superior of his monastery. He was asked if he would under- take the mission, and joyfully consented. In vain his brethren pointed out to him the difficulties and the dangers of the undertaking. The greater these were, the greater was the chance of his reaching the summit of his ambition, the glory of martyrdom. One of his brother monks, Autbert, volunteered to accompany him, but none other could be induced to face the perils which beset the path which he had to tread. Thus Anskar and Autbert set out in the train of Harold, and during the journey and voyage a kindly feeling sprang up between the royal and the missionary families. Harold got no cordial greetinn; from his LECT. IV.] Anskar. 127 proud heathen subjects -when he announced to tliem that lie had done homage to the emperor, and that he had embraced the gospel. He seems to have been very sincere and very earnest in his endeavours to induce his nobles and subjects to abandon idolatry and embrace Christianity. To expect that he was altogether judicious in these efforts would be to sup- pose that he had those views regarding the relation that ought to subsist between rulers and subjects, — those views regarding liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment, which, during the millennium which has elapsed between his time and ours, the nations of Europe have been slowly and painfully learning. The result was that after two years, in 828, he was compelled to abdicate the throne. In the meantime Anskar and Autbert had not been idle, and their labours had not been without some measure of success. Their chief efforts were directed towards the Christian education of the young. They began with a school of twelve boys, and the number gradu- ally increased. Most of the scholars appear to have been slaves, purchased with money probably supplied by the Emperor Louis. This, it need scarcely be said, was putting Christian education to an immense dis- advantage. But even under such disadvantages we gladly regard Anskar as a Christian missionary educa- tionist of a thousand years ago, and gladly accord him a place in that catalogue which, beginning with Justin 12 8 Medicsval Missions. Martyr, and Origen, and Pantanus of Alexandria, contains the names of Patrick and his successors, and Columba and his, and Columbanus and his, and, after a blank, begins again with Luther and Melanchthon of "Wurtemberg, and closes with the names of those who are striving now to impregnate the education of our Indian and African fellow-subjects with the living principle of the gospel of Christ. The position of Anskar, difficult as it was while Harold was on the throne, became still more difficult after his abdication, and about the same time Autbert fell sick, and was obliged to return to Corbie, where soon afterwards he died. From all that we know of Anskar, I do not think that any amount of personal danger, or of difficulty to be encountered in carrying on his work, would have induced him to quit his post. But just at the time when the door was shut acfainst him in Denmark, another was opened in Sweden, which promised to be wider and more effectual. ' By intercourse with Christian nations,' says Neander, ' some seeds of Christianity had already been scattered in Sweden. Commerce especially had contributed to this event. Christian merchants had conveyed the knowledge of Christianity to Sweden ; and merchants from Sweden, becoming acquainted with Christianity at Dorstede, had, many of them, no doubt there em- braced the faith. Others, induced by what they had heard about Christianity, betook themselves to Dor- LECT. IV.] Anskar. 129 stede ' fur the purpose of obtaining a better knowledge of tlie religion, or of receiving baptism. In the expe- ditions, moreover, which they made to distant Christian lands, they had brought away with them numbers of Christian captives, by which means the knowledge of Christianity had already found its way to Sweden, and had attracted, more or less, the attention of the people.' It having come to the knowledge of the emperor that there were in Sweden many who were willing — and some who were even anxious — to receive Christian in- struction, he requested Anskar to go at all events as an explorer or pioneer. Accordingly, having made the best arrangements that he could for carrying on the work in Denmark, he set out in a trading vessel for Sweden about the end of a.d. 829, taking with him presents from the emperor to the King of Sweden. On the way the vessel was attacked by pirates, and Anskar lost both these royal gifts and all his own possessions, and narrowly escaped with his life. But he was not dis- couraged, and his faith and fortitude met with a blessed reward. He was kindly received by the Swedish king, who gave him permission to preach, and his subjects freedom to accept and profess the gospel of ^ Dorstede was a town in Holland, the great entrepot of tlie trade of the Xorth. I presume it is the same with Dordreclit or Dort, which long afterwards was the meeting-place of a famous Synod. Of Dor- sfafum, Neander says that it was ' a famous commercial town. ' Of Lordracum or Dordrecht, Cluvier, a Dutch geographer of the sixteentli century, says that it is the city first in dignity in all Holland, and a famous emporium of Ehenish wine. I 1 30 AledicBval Missions. Christ. As Anskar had been led to expect, so he found, many Christian captives, who had been brought from other countries, — France, Germany, Britain, Ire- land, — and who, having been as sheep without a shepherd, gladly received from Anskar those consola- tions and exhortations which were fitted to alleviate the sorrows of their captivity. His preaching to the Swedes was not in vain. One convert is mentioned by name, Herigar, a man of rank, and governor of a department. He became a zealous promoter of Chris- tianity, and we shall hear of him in the sequel. After a year and a half's stay in Sweden, Anskar returned home, and gladdened the heart of the good emperor, and doubtless of many others, by the cheer- ing prospect he was able to present of the acceptance of the gospel by the Swedes. He was now made nominally bishop of Hamburg, but with the special design of superintending and conducting missionary operations both in Denmark and Sweden. In the former country nothing could be done. What little could be done for it, was done by Anskar in Hamburg, who educated a number of boys, in- structing them carefully in the Danish language, in the confident hope that God would yet open a way for them as evangelists into that land. The work in Sweden was entrusted to Ganzbert, a nephew of Bishop Ebbo, of whom we have heard before, and shall near again. For many years he laboured there with LKCT. IV.] Ebbo. 131 good success. But this success drew upon him — as success always will draw upon the mission to which it is accorded — the animosity of the heathen. In 845 he was attacked in his own house, and driven away by an infuriated rabble. In the same year Hamburg was attacked and plundered by the Norse- men, and Anskar's cathedral, his house, and his library were reduced to ashes. But his faith did not fail. Gazing with saddened heart upon the ruins, he ex- claimed, in words that have more frequently than any others been quoted by bereaved ones : ' The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' For a time he Avas in dire poverty, the good emperor having died five years before, and his diocese lying in two of the kingdoms into which the empire was divided at his death. But worst of all, Denmark and Sweden were both shut against the gospel, and there was no appearance of any improve- ment. You will remember that it was Ebbo who originally accompanied Harold into Denmark, and came back with him when he returned and was bap- tized. Ebbo, too, it was who had selected Anskar for the Danish mission, and it was his nephew, Ganzbert, who had now been driven from Sweden. Unhappily, Ebbo got involved in the meshes of secular politics, and lost his interest in the cause of missions, the cause of God and of man. But sore calamities chastened his spirit, and the embers of Christian and missionary 1 3 2 Mediceval Missions. zeal were blown into a flame by the blast of adversity. Anskar and be met, apparently after a long separation, at the time of Anskar's greatest depression. ' Be assured/ said Ebbo to him, ' tliat what we have laboured to accomplish for the glory of Christ will bring forth fruit in the Lord ; for it is my firm and settled belief, yea, I know assuredly, that although what we have undertaken to do among these nations meets for a time with obstacles and hindrances on account of our sins, yet it will not be lost, but will thrive more and more till the name of the Lord ex- tends to the extreme boundaries of the earth.' Weeping endured with Anskar for a night, joy came in the morning ; and, as so often happens, the darkest hour was that before the dawn. First of all, he was delivered from poverty by having the bishopric of Bremen conjoined to his devastated and impoverished see of Hamburg. But, far better than this, he suc- ceeded in gaining the favour of Horik, king of Den- mark, who had driven Harold from the throne, and had been hitherto an uncompromising enemy of the gospel. Anskar undertook the management of some political negotiations with him, and in the conduct of them made so favourable an impression on him that he refused to have any other negotiator or ambassador of the German king at his court. He treated him as a personal friend, and gave him full liberty to conduct missionary operations. These operations he conducted LECT. IV.] Ardgar. 133 with his usual zeal, and by God's blessing, with much success. Many were baptized. The Christians of Germany and Holland traded more freely with the Danes than before, and the Danes resorted in larger numbers as traders to Holland and Germany ; and in these and other W'ays a knowledge of the gospel, and some apprehension of the blessings which it brings with it, were diffused among the people. This favourable state of matters in Denmark allowed Anskar to turn his attention to Sweden, whence Ganz- bert was expelled in 845. In 851, Anskar enlisted for this mission the service of Ardgar, a priest who had been some time living the life of a hermit. Him he sent to Sweden ; and he was joyfully received by the Christians there, and especially by Herigar, whom I liave mentioned before. It w^as ascertained that he had done much to prevent the dispersion of the small flock when they had no pastor. The mission had been put to the severest test to which a mission can be put, that of being thrown upon its own resources, while as yet the church is unorganized, and in ordinary circumstances would have been dependent upon foreign missionaries for instruction and guidance, — such a test as that to which the mission and church in Madagascar were put in our own time. And as that church in the nineteenth century nobly stood the test, so did the Swedish church in the ninth. An interesting para- gi-aph in Neander is descriptive of but one case, but 1 34 Mediaeval Missions. there is no reason to doubt that it indicates a state of feeling that was widely diffused: — ' We may conceive with what delight the arrival of Ardgar was hailed by the Stadtholder, who for seven years had not received the Holy Supper from the hands of a priest. Through his media- tion Ardgar received permission to preach wherever he pleased. There were many Christians, besides, who had painfully felt the want of a Christian priest, and were not a little rejoiced at behold- ing one once more among them. One of these was Frideburg, a pious widow, who, in spite of all the violence of the pagans around her, had remained stedfast in the faith, and seeing no prospect that in the hour of death, which to a person of her years could not be far distant, she could receive the Holy Supper from the hands of a priest, she had purchased some wine, and carefully preserved it in a vessel, directing her daughter to administer to her, at the last hour, a portion of the element which was to repre- sent to her the blood of the Lord, and be the sign that she com- mended herself to the Lord's mercy in passing from the world. The greater was her satisfaction in being able to join in the Christian worship of God restored by Ardgar ; and she now had her most earnest wish fulfilled, in being permitted in her last moments to draw comfort and strength from partaking of the Holy Supper.' I make no comment on this extract, either, on the one hand, with reference to the viev/s which it dis- closes, which some of us would probably be disposed to regard as having a sacramentarian character, or with reference, on the other, to the manifest absence from the mind of this woman, who was probably a fair representative of the church of the age, that the con- secration by a priest gave efficacy to the ordinance of the Lord's Supper by the transubstantiation of the LEGT. IV.] Ai'dgar. 135 elements ; or to the equally manifest absence from her mind of any knowledge of the doctrine or practice of communion in one kind, or withholding the cup from the laity. But I cannot dismiss the extract without sending back across the intervening millennium a brotherly greeting to this faithful widow, who so earnestly longed for the privileges of God's house, and who panted after communion with the living God, as the heart panteth after the water-brooks. And I may just say in passing, that it is one of the rewards which one meets with who has occasion, as I have lately had, to wander over the rugged wastes of history, that he does now and again come in contact with a jewel such as this, and is made to feel that amid God's hidden ones there are many who shall yet be admired as polished and resplendent gems in His lordly diadem. But Ardgar, although a man of ardent piety, was essentially a hermit, and not a missionary, or even a pastor. His ambition was not to rescue the perishing, but to prepare his own soul by meditation and devo- tion for the beatific vision. And it is not for us to sit in judgment upon him. His visit to Sweden did good, by showing the small flock that they were not forgotten by the good Shepherd ; but he was not well qualified for the work either of winning or of guiding souls. His hands, never strong, were more enfeebled by the death of Herigar, and in 852 he returned to his hermitage. For a time Anskar found it impossible J 6 Medicsval Missions to fill his place ; and then he resolved to go himself into the breach. It is notable that, on this occasion, he took with him letters of commendation from the royal Dane, who had come to the throne as a professed opponent of Christianity, to his royal brother of Sweden, in which he said that ' he was well acquainted with this servant of God, who came to him at first as an ambassador from the Emperor Louis. Never in all his life had he known so good a man, nor found one so worthy of confidence. Having found him to be a man of such distinguished goodness, he had let him order everything as he chose to do in regard to Christianity. He therefore begged King Olaf to allow him in like manner to arrange everything as he pleased for the introduction of Christianity into his kingdom, for he would do nothing but what was good and right.' Yet the giver of this testimony was not a Christian ; at least he never made a profession of a change of faith. Anskar found the national mind of Sweden actually brought into contact with the question, what the national religion was henceforth to be. Before his arrival a strong heathen party had risen up in vindica- tion of the heathen worship and the heathen gods. Anskar, however, received a kindly w^elcome from the king, who told hhn that he was himself in favour of toleration, but that he could do nothing without the consent of the nobles and the people. Then Anskar LECT. IV.] Anskar. 137 gave himself to prayer unto Him who turneth men's hearts like the rivers of waters. By the nobles the question was submitted to the decision of the lot. It was decided in favour of toleration. It was then submitted to the assembly of the people. The pro- ceedings were very much like those of Northumbria, of which we have lieard. An old man inveighed against the impotence of the national gods, and recom- mended that an experiment should be made ; and so it was decreed. Thus both in Denmark and in Sweden the gospel had established a footing for itself during the active lifetime of this noble man. We should greatly err if we supposed that all difficulties were overcome, and that no more missionary work was needed. There was in reality but a small beginning made. Yet it was so made that it was manifest that the good work must go on. Even as in India now, although there be but about one professing Christian for every thousand of the population, yet friends and foes alike acknowledge that Hinduism and Moham- medanism are dying, while Christianity is alive. It is a question of time, and so far, but only so far, a matter of uncertainty. They are dying, and must die ; it is living, and must live. So it was with Denmark and Sweden at the close of Anskar's ministry and life. The tide had begun to make, and although it came not with the rush of the swelling Solway, yet it did come, even as it is destined to come all the world over, till o 8 MedicEval Missions. the earth be overspread with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. I have spoken of the end of Anskar's life and labours. It was soon to come. His life had been from the first a life of labour, and it was so to the end. It was from beginning to end a life of faith, a life of prayer, a life of devoted and single-hearted service of God, a life of disinterested beneficence toward man. In those rude days it might be expected that such a man should be credited with miraculous powers. But he ever declared that he sought for and knew of no greater miracle than this, that the grace of God should make of Anskar a good man. At last, in his sixty- fourth year, he entered into his rest. ' Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours ; and their works do follow them.' His last words were, ' Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.' Although the Norwegians were continually coming into contact, in the varying relations of war and peace, with the Swedes and the Danes, the French and the Germans, the English and the Irish, and although in this way some knowledge of the Christian system must have been diffused among them, yet the formal intro- duction of it into their country was a full century later than its introduction into Denmark and Sweden. LECT. IV.] Haco. 139 And when it was introduced, it was not by mission- aries, but by kings, whose carnal weapons assorted but badly with the spiritual warfare which they undertook. The complicated relations that subsisted at this time betwixt the English and the Danes and the Norwe- gians, it is not my part to explain. "VVe are in the habit of hearing it stated that Alfred the Great sub- dued the Danes, and drove them out of England. This is not true, excepting in a very general sense. Long after his time there were Danish princes in England, sometimes asserting independence, and some- times acknowledging subjection to the Saxon kings ; now fighting with them, and now against them. And very similar was the position of many Norwegians or Norsemen in England. Harold, a Norwegian king, was dethroned by his brother Eric, and took refuge in England. His son Haco was brought up at the court of Athelstane, grandson of Alfred the Great. Hearing that the supplanter of his father had made himself detestable to nobles and people by his tyranny, Haco returned to Norway, and was soon seated on the throne, Eric in his turn fleeing to England, which was then, as it is now, and we trust will ever be, the asylum of all who are in distress. The great desire of Haco's life seems to have been the abolition of heathenism and the substitution of Christianity as the religion of his people. That he was always judicious in the methods which he employed for this end, 1 40 Mediceval Missions. I will not assert ; but the difficulties with which he had to contend were very great, I quote from Neander : — ' Having first gained over his most confidential friends to the side of Christianity, as soon as he had reason to believe that his power was sufficiently established, he proposed, in the year 945, before an assembly of the people, that the whole nation, great and small, masters and servants, men and women, should renounce idolatry and sacrifice, woi-ship the only true God, and Jesus Christ His Son, devote every Sunday to the exercises of religion, resting from all labour, and observe every Friday as a fast-day. Such a proposition to renounce at once the old religion and customs of the land could, of course, serve only to exasperate the minds of a people who were devoted to their ancient sacred institutions, especially as nothing had been done to prepare the way for such a measure by a previous inworking of Christianity upon their modes of thinking. The heads of households declared that they could not gain a subsistence for themselves and their families if so much time were to be withdrawn from labour. The labouring class and servants declared that by so much fasting they would have no strength left to work. In many of the speeclies of the nobles who took up the argument, zeal for the old national religion, and repugnance to a new and foreign worship opposed to the customs of the people, were most emphatically expressed, and the king's proposal was repelled with universal indignation.' It is very remarkable that, in the whole history of the introduction of Christianity into Norway and Iceland, extending over a period of a century and a half, we meet not with the name of any noted bishop, or ecclesiastic, or missionary. There were, no doubt, ecclesiastics employed in the work, and these would appear to have been generally Englishmen ; but they occupied a secondary place, almost their only province LECT. IV.] Olaf. 141 being to baptize those whom the kings compelled to submit to that ordinance. The kings were the real missionaries ; and one cannot help feeling a kind of admiration of the ferocious zeal which one and another of them manifested in the undertaking, — even as the lord commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely, although his wisdom was wholly misdi- rected. The most persistent and the most successful of these missionary kings was Olaf the Thick, who came from England in 1017, and set himself with heart and soul to the work of the demolition of heathenism, and the substitution of Christianity as the national religion. Possessed of all the qualities that could fascinate the people, — a handsome person, great bodily strength and power of endurance, absolute fearlessness in danger, and determination to carry out his purpose by wdiat- ever means, — he could not but be popular with all classes of a people with whom these qualities were held in the highest repute. By pulling down idol temples, by shivering grim idols with his own battle- axe wielded by his own strong arm, by standing forth as the champion of Christianity in opposition to frantic multitudes mad upon their idols, by being ever ready to fight and to die for his country, which was theirs as well as his, and equally ready to fight and to die for his faith, which was his but not theirs, he gained the admiration of a people with whom, after all, valour and patriotism were the chief articles even of their 142 Medice val Missions. religious creed ; and his indiscreet zeal was probably not so wholly prejudicial to the cause on whose behalf it was employed as we might perhaps have expected it to be, and as in almost any other circumstances it would certainly liave been. By means such as these, worthier of followers of the false prophet of Mecca than of disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, a nominal Christianity was at last accepted in Norway, and even this conspired with other influences to refine the manners of the people, and in the successive genera- tions there were doubtless multitudes who received the truth in the love of it. In contemplating this whole history we find scarcely anything that we can thoroughly approve ; and are thrown back upon that adorable providence which bringeth good out of evil, and that adorable grace which makes the wrath, or the fanatic and misdirected zeal of man, to contribute to the praise of God and the benefit of man. We have hitherto had to do with three of the four great families into which ethnologists have divided the European nations, — the Celts, the Teutons, and the Scandinavians. The fourth, with whom we now come into contact, are called the Slavonian or Sclavonian family. They differed from the others in descent, in language, and in religion. Spread over a vast extent of territory, stretching from the Polar Sea on the north to the Mediterranean in the south, and from the Baltic LECT. IV.] Greek Church. 143 on the north-west to the Black Sea on the south-east, they, of course, differed widely from each other ; yet they were separated by still more distinct differences from the other nations. So far as I have been able to form a judgment, — though I am no adept in ethnological studies, and have not indeed much faith in ethnologi- cal theories and generalizations, — the Slavonian races seem to have been generally less distinguished than either the Teutons or the Scandinavians by what we commonly regard as the special virtues and the special vices of the savage. Less warlike and brave, they were less vindictive and fierce ; more willing to endure continuous hardship and toil, they were less truthful and trustworthy. Their weapons of offence were symbolic of their dispositions. These were not the broadsword and the battle-axe and the ponderous club, but the light bow and the poisoned arrow. Their virtues and their vices were such as we commonly regard as characteristic of the Asiatic rather than the European. As they came eventually rather under the influence of the Greek than of the Eoman Church, it will be neces- sary to interject a few sentences concerning the division between these two branches of the Chi-istian church. From the earliest Christian times there were dif- ferences of usages and differences of feeling between the churches of the East and those of the West, The removal of the seat of empire from Eonie to Byzantium acted variously, and in some respects in opposite direc- 144 MedicEval Missions. tions, with reference to the position of the bishops of Rome and those of Constantinople. In the first place, it raised the relative position of the latter by transferring to them that prestige which the former had enjoyed as ecclesiastical presidents of the metropolis of the empire. But then, on the other hand, it increased the power and ministered to the arrogance of the former, by making them appear as virtually the sole governors of Eome. In this sense it is that many understand the letting or hindering influence which retarded the development of the mystery of iniquity (2 Thess. ii. 7) to have been the imperial power, and the taking of it out of the way to have been the removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople. Still there was not an absolute breach between the Roman and Greek churches till the ninth century. Till then the Romish popes acknowledged the patriarchs of Con- stantinople as really bishops of the Catholic Church, and as such claimed supreme sway over them. The patriarchs equally admitted the bishops of Rome to be bishops of the Catholic Church, acknowledged their equality, but refused to admit the superiority or supremacy which they claimed. It was not till the middle of the ninth century that the churches were actually disrupted. In 853, Photius became patriarch of Constantinople. In 862, Pope Nicolas l., in a council at Rome, excommunicated I^liotius and all his adherents. Four years after, Photius, in a council at LECT. IV.] Greek Chin'ch. 145 Constantinople, excommunicated Nicolas and all his adherents. While, therefore, I have hitherto spoken of Eome and the pope as if they represented tlie whole of what was regarded as the Catholic Church, with the exception of the Culdees, I have done so without compunction, because, in point of fact, there was a virtual separation between Eome and Constan- tinople long before the actual separation took place ; and so in the sequel I shall speak of the Greek Church and the patriarch of Constantinople as being virtually separated from liome, although, as I have said, the actual formal separation did not take place till a.d. 862. Perhaps I shall give all the information that it is necessary for us to possess respecting the differences of the two churches, by simply quoting the five charges which Photius brought against the Church of Eome. These were : (1) That the Eomans fasted on the Sabbath or seventh day of the week ; (2) That they allowed the use of milk and cheese in the first Nveek of Lent; (3) That they imposed celibacy on the clergy ; (4) That they gave the power of confirmation to the bishops alone, and not to the presbyters ; and (5) That they held the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the, Son (Filioque), and not from the Father only. Perhaps it is scarcely correct to describe the Bulgarians as a Sclavonian race ; for it seems to be certain that they were a mixed race of Tartars and K 146 MedicEval Missiofis. Slavonians. But the Tartarian portion of them had adopted the language and customs of the Slavonians. Living on the borders of the Greek Empire, they were engaged in frequent wars with it ; and in the course of constant marauding expeditions had carried off many captives, from some of whom they obtained much knowledge of Christianity. Notably, in 813 they took and plundered Adrianople, and carried off its bishop among the captives. Though the bishop, whose name I have not been able to ascertain, was a prisoner, yet the word of God was not bound. The bishop and his fellow-prisoners laboured earnestly for the conversion of their captors, and with some good measure of success. The work was carried on by another captive, a monk called Constantino Cypharas. At the same time a sister of the Bulgarian prince Bogoris was, and had been for a long time, a captive in Constantinople, where she had been instructed in the Christian faith, and had heartily embraced it. An exchange of prisoners was proposed in 861, and the monk Constantino was exchanged for the princess. She, on her return, laboured earnestly for the con- version of her brother, and succeeded in making a favourable impression on his mind. As Bogoris was specially fond of paintings, his sister sent for a monk, Methodius, whom she knew to be a skilful artist. It is said that he succeeded in making a favourable impression on the mind of the prince by a painting LECT. IV.] Bulgaria. 147 M-liicli he executed of the Last Judgment. This impression was confirmed by suitable instruction, and Bogoris was baptized in 863 or 864. On his baptism he took the name of Michael, and forthwith set him- self with ignorant zeal to enforce the conversion of his subjects. This gave rise to a rebellion, which he suppressed, and punished the rebels with terrible severity. Although Photius, the patriarch of Con- stantinople, of whom I have spoken, sent a long letter to the prince on his conversion, yet no steps were taken for the instruction of the people, and the con- firmation in the faith of those who embraced it. In 865, therefore, the prince and his nobles applied to Pope iSTicolas i., whom also I have incidentally mentioned. He sent them two bishops, with a supply of Bibles and other books, and with a letter which has come down to us, and which, while, of course, it contains a few statements about saints' days, and about referring all matters of doubt to the papal see, with which we do not accord, is upon the whole a fine specimen of a Christian pastoral letter; thoroughly Protestant in its spirit, and singularly free from papal assumption. There seem to have been various negotiations among the Bulgarians as to their attach- ing themselves to the Greek or the Koman Church, but ultimately the former prevailed ; and the Bulgarian Christians, of whom we have lately heard much, are still a portion of the Greek Church. 1 48 Medics val Missions. The evangelization of Moravia is peculiarly interest- ing on account of the subsequent history of the church in that country, the way in which the nobles and people defied the Council of Constance, and vindicated John Huss and Jerome of Prague ; the long persecution which they endured after the Reformation, and the formation of the Moravian Church in Silesia, which for a long time was v/ell-nigh the sole representative of missions among the Protestant churches. The most important distinctive feature in connection with the original evangelization of the country was the use of the vernacular language in the public worship of the church. Cyril and Methodius, the first missionaries, came originally from Constantinople. They set about reducing the language to writing, and translating the Bible into it. They afterwards conformed to Eome, but with the reservation as to the use of the vernacular language exclusively in the public services. This was stoutly resisted, but they stood firm ; and I doubt not that the noble struggle which the Moravians made against the corruptions of Rome, and their noble endurance of afflictions and persecutions at Rome's hand, were, under God, due in great measure to their reading in their own tongue the wonderful works of God, and their having access to the throne of grace without the intervention of that middle wall of partition, a foreign language. Bohemia was at this time a dukedom politically LECT. IV.] Bohemia. 149 dependent on the kingdom of Moravia, although Moravia afterwards became a mere province of the independent kingdom of Bohemia. Intensely interest- ing is everything relating to the Christianization of this land, the birth-place of the continental Eeforma- tion. It was from Moravia, and probably in Moravia, that Duke Borziwoi, duke of Bohemia, became acquainted witli Christianity, and was baptized. Nowhere was there a keener contest between paganism and the gospel than in Bohemia. The gourd gi'ows in a night and dies in an hour. The trembling poplar grows apace, and is worthless ; the sturdy oak grows slowly, but so grows that its timber has the consistency of iron. With man or with church it is no evil thing to attain to blessing and peace through conflict and struggle. The maxim may be misapplied, but in a very important sense it is true, that he never believed who never doubted. It was not till the middle of the eleventh century that Christianity became really the religion of the Bohemian people. Up till that time, although there had been a national church, with an archbishop of Prague and other bishops, heathenism was dominant in the domestic and social life of the people. Polygamy and the slave trade in its very worst form were practised and vindicated, which, I need not say, would have been impossible had the Christian church been much more than a mere name. Prom this time, how- 150 Media: val Missions. ever, the gospel became a power in the life and thought of the people. There was a large Slavonian tribe called the Wends, who were separated from the other tribes of the race, and inliabited a land which is now an important and central part of Germany, including the great Prussian kingdom. From an early period frequent attempts were made to introduce the gospel amongst this tribe, but with little success. Christianity was associated in the minds of these people with the Germans, with whom they were bravely fighting a losing battle, and they would not take the gospel from their hands. One such attempt is of special interest to us, because a chief actor in it was one — J\'lr. Maclear calls him one of the last — of that missionary band of our country- men on whose labours and sufferings we have dwelt so lovingly and so long. For this reason, as well as from its intrinsic interest, T quote Maclear's account of his martyrdom : — ' In this persecution perished one of the last representjitives of the earlier Irish missionaries, in the person of John, bishop of Mecklenberg. Leaving Ireland, he had travelled into Saxony, and been hospitably received by the archbishop of Bremen. By the latter he had been induced to undertake a share in the Slavonic mission, and was recommended to Gotteschalk, who stationed him at ^lecklenberg. His labours are said to have been blessed with unusual success, but he fell a martyr to liis zeal. After being cruelly beaten with clubs, he was carried about as a show through the chief Slavonic towns ; and at Rethre, when he would not deny the faith, suffered the loss of his hands and feet, and afterwards LECT. IV,] Zeal witJioJU Knowledge. 151 was beheaded. The body was flung into the street, and the head, fixed on a pole, was carried iu triumph to the temple of Radegast, and there offered as an atonement to the offended deity.' It is said that proverbs are the concentrated expres- sion of the experience of man. Yet the experience of man is not absolutely uniform, and therefore proverbs are not universally true. Thus it is with the proverb that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church. The church did not grow from the seed thus sown, — the blood of John, and many other martyrs. In truth, the Christianization of this country seems to have been the result of the subjugation of the people, the crush- ing of their national spirit, and the prevalence of German influence and authority over them ; unques- tionably the most unsatisfactory of all conceivable ways whereby a nation may be Christianized. In all the vast field over which we have had to travel in this lecture, we have beheld a scene of conflict and struggle ; zealous missionaries counting not their lives dear to them, but willing to lay them down as a will- ing offering to the God whom they served, if thereby the salvation of men might be effected ; and brave kings too, with zeal little directed by knowledge, ready to imperil their crowns and their lives in order to confer upon their subjects what they knew would be a benefit to them, although they saw but vaguely how the benefit was to be produced. We have sympathized with the men who bravely, and in the spirit of willing 152 Meditxval Missions. self-sacrifice, consecrated themselves to do the work of God, although they might in many cases mistake the manner and the spirit in which that work should have been done. And I am free to confess that I am not without sympathy also with those who, with equal bravery, refused to accept that which was presented to them in this erroneous manner and this mistaken spirit. But I have little sympathy with a nation which seemed listlessly to drift into the profession of the gospel, receiving it without any earnestness of opposition, or without any enthusiasm of acceptance. And such, according to the best judgment that I have been able to form, were the characteristics of the Christianization of the greatest Slavonian tribe, who occupied a great portion of what is now the immense Eussian Empire. The history of it may be told in a few sentences. In 955, the Princess Olga went, apparently on a visit of ceremony, to Constantinople. Here she was induced to embrace Christianity, and was baptized, the Emperor Porphyrogenitus acting as her sponsor. On her return she endeavoured to induce her son Swiatoslav, and her grandson Vladimir, to follow her example. Upon the former she seems to have produced no impression, but the latter was favour- ably impressed. Yet, when he came to the throne, he showed great zeal for idolatry. Then missionaries came to him from various quarters, Mohammedans, Jews, German Christians, and Greek Christians. The LKCT. IV.] Russian Inqiuries. 153 Mohammedans and the Jews he seems to have sum- marily dismissed, and the remembrance of his grand- mother's lessons so far prevailed that he was disposed to prefer the Greek to the Eomisli Church. Yet he came to no decision, and does not appear to have had any particular anxiety on the subject. Next year he conferred with some of his nobles, and they recom- mended that messengers should be sent to the different countries, and report as to the character of the several religions. The result I give in the words that Maclear takes from a Eussian author : — 'Messengers were accordingly despatched to the Jews and Mohammedans, as also to the German and Eastern Churches. Of all they returned the most unfavourable report, except only the church of Constantinople. Of this they could not say enough. When they visited the Byzantine capital, they were conducted to the church of St. Sophia, then perhaps the finest ecclesiastical structure in the world. The patriarch himself celebrated the Liturgy with the utmost pomp and magnificence. The gorgeous processions, the music, the chanting, the appearance of the deacons and sub- deacons with lighted torches and white linen wings on their shoulders, before whom the people prostrated themselves, crying, Kurie Eloison, — all this, so utterly different from anything they had ever witnessed amid their own wild steppes, had such an overpowering effect on the Eussian envoys, that, on their return to Vladimir, they spoke not a word in favour of the other religions, but of the Greek Church they could not say enough. " "When we stood in the temple," said they, " we did not know where Ave were, for there is nothing else like it upon earth ; there in truth God has His dwelling with men ; and we can never forget the beauty we saw there. No one who has once tasted sweets will afterwards take that which is bitter, nor can we now any longer abide in heathenism." Thereupon the Boyars said to 154 Mediisval Missions. Vladimir : " If the religion of the Greeks had not been good, your grandmother Olga, who was the wisest of women, would not have embraced it." The weight of the name of Olga decided her grand- son, and he said no more in answer than these words: " AVhere shall we be baptized ? " ' Yet Vladimir did not act. Two years seem to have passed before he took any positive step. Then he invaded tlie territory of the emperor. He took the town of Cherson, and then proposed peace, and asked the sister of the emperor in marriage. His suit was granted on condition of his accepting Christianity. Immediately after his marriage he was baptized. Then he set himself to the extirpation of idolatry, and seems to have met with no opposition. Then he gave orders for the immediate baptism of his people : ' Whoever shall not to-morrow repair to the river, be he rich or poor, he is my enemy.' The command was unhesitat- ingly obeyed, and thus, as I have said, the great Eussian Empire glided into the profession of the gospel. And such has been the character of the religion of Itussia all through, — a religion of pomp and cere- monial, without depth or power ; a religion for which no man has ever died, the only one of the religions of any great masses of men, true or false, which never had a martyr. In support of political views and social theories, in the fields of defensive and offensive warfare, Eussian blood has flowed like water; but religious zeal, apart from political objects, so far as I have learned, lias never been exhibited. It may, of course, be said L?:cT. IV.] Conclusion. 155 that there has been no persecution, and therefore no niartyi'dom, just because rulers and people have so har- moniously been bound in the ties of a common faith ; but it is to be feared that it is rather because the hearts of rulers and people have never been fairly reached by the influence of heart-religion. And now, at the close of this too long and yet too cursory review, I would only say that the main use to which we should put it is, to deepen the conviction which, I have no doubt, we all feel to a greater or less extent, of the manifold wisdom of God, as in the device of the great scheme of redemption and the application of it to the souls of men, so in the diffusion of it over the regions of earth. We should probably have ex- pected that a purer gospel should have been propa- gated by more unexceptionable means, and accepted from higher motives. But just as we know that God, infinitely good as He is, permits evil to exist in the world which He governs, for this probably amongst other reasons, that His people may love good the more because they are able to contrast it with evil, so He may have permitted imperfection to mingle with His work as performed by men, in order that we, for whom so large a portion of that same work is reserved, may do it with no less zeal, but with more humility and more earnest cries to Him for "uidance and direction. LECTUEE V. "\TrHILE speaking of the evangelization of tlie * * barbarian tribes who invaded and overran the provinces of the Eoman Empire, and became the forefathers of the nations of modern Europe, I said nothing of those who took possession of Spain and Italy. These, apparently, were Arians ; certainly the Longobardi, or Lombards of Italy, and the Suevi of Spain, were generally professors of Arianism. But I do not find that any special missions, in the proper sense of that term, were sent in order to their conver- sion to the orthodox faith. I have no doubt that much good work, akin to that which we now call home- mission work, was done among them ; and it would appear that Arianism gradually died out, and the Catholic faith prevailed, rather through influence than through direct missionary agency. Just as I have had occasion to show that all over Europe the barbarians showed a willingness to embrace the language and the civilisation, and even to a certain extent the religion of those whom they conquered, so I have no doubt that this was especially so in Italy, and to some extent in Spain. Eor it is to be noticed that tlie Catholic LECT. v.] Rome. ' 157 faith never lost its ascendancy in Eome, although the city was taken and plundered again and again. Al- though there was a succession of Gothic kings of Italy, and although, under the title of exarchs of Kavenna, nominees or rivals of the emperors of Con- stantinople exercised a very real and important sove- reignty over a considerable part of Europe, yet Eome itself fell only the more under the sway of its bishops, who came more and more to assume temporal sove- reignty, and to claim that, occupying the city of the Csesars, they were entitled to wield the sceptre of the Caesars. It is not within our province now to enter into any disquisition as to the way in which this transference to the popes of the prestige wdiich had belonged to the emperors wrought towards the develop- ment of papal corruption and papal assumption, and that papal tyranny which in time assumed the triple crown, and trampled under its feet all the temporal and spiritual and eternal interests of mankind. I bring no railing accusation, and I say it more in sorrow than in anger, that from about the middle of the Middle Ages the process of deterioration which had begun long before went on wdth ever increasing rapidity. Zeal enough was manifested for the enlarge- ment of the papal power, and for the rescue of the Holy Land from unchristian occupation ; but little for the truth of God and the salvation of the souls of men. Yet, as there was probably as little earnestness on the 158 MedicBval Missions. part of tlie Arians as there was on the part of the orthodox, it naturally happened that the traditions of orthodoxy, and the possession by the orthodox of authority and power, gradually prevailed, and that a cold and heartless Arianism was gradually superseded by an equally cold and heartless orthodoxy. In Spain it is evident that the triumph of orthodoxy over Arianism was more the result of political than of missionary causes. The Arian Suevi were early conquered by a section of the Arian Goths ; and for a time the old Spanish Church, which existed before the incursion of the Suevi, must have held a position similar to that which, as we have seen, the old British Church occupied in Wales and Cornwall and Strath- clyde. That efforts were made from time to time for tlie conversion of the Arians I do not doubt, and we have some faint records of some of them. But very likely the efforts were made very little in the spirit of the gospel. The missionaries probably put more con- fidence in the efficacy of the relics of certain saints than in appeals to the reason and the conscience of men, and in the exhibition of the work and sufferings, and the death and resurrection, the ascension and intercession, of the incarnate Son of God. Still it must be borne in mind that the records come to us through the channels of later Eomanism, and that it is quite probable, indeed quite certain, that they bring prominently forward what was really the worse side LECT. v.] Martin of Galicia. 159 of the labours, while they record and keep out of view a better side, Avhich, we may hope, and indeed believe, had a real existence. The most prominent name among these missionaries is that of j\Iartin, bishop of Galicia, towards the end of the sixth century. Martin was a native of Pan- nonia, the native country of Martin of Tours, whose name he seems to have assumed. In his youth he made a journey into Palestine for the purpose of visit- ing the holy places. On his return he went into Galicia, a province at the extreme north of Portugal, and laboured diligently in the refutation of Arianism, and preaching the gospel of Christ. Gregory of Tours gives a very short notice of him ; but Baronius has preserved a contemporary Latin poem composed in his honour, in M'hich are ascribed to him the courage of Peter, the doctrine of Paul, the edifying gifts of James and John. He is said to have converted to the Catholic faith King Theodomir, who had been cured of leprosy by the intervention of Martin of Tours, and was therefore prepared to receive this other Martin, who was represented as coming in the spirit and the power of his great predecessor. This Martin is regarded as the apostle of Spain ; and I have no doubt that he was a zealous advocate of the truth, although his history is overladen with manifestly fabulous legends. There seems to be no doubt, at all events, that his labours resulted in the national confession, in 1 60 Medicsval Missions. the kingdom of Galicia, of the Catholic doctrine of the divinity of Christ. But the strife was not at an end. A King Lewigild was a violent Arian, and used all the resources of power to compel, and of patronage to bribe, men to the denial of the equality of the Son with the Father. In this, as in so many other cases, we see the bitterness of a queen - mother brought into contrast with the meek stedfastness of an orthodox princess, I quote from Baronius a short passage which he takes from Gregory of Tours and Isidore : — ' In this year (a.d. 583), according to the testimony of Gregory, a terrible persecution was raised by the Arian King Lewigild against the Catholics. Thus he says : "In that year there was a great persecution of tlie Catholics in Spain ; many were sentenced to banishment, deprived of their property, branded on their fore- heads,' committed to prison, and put to death in various ways." Thus, briefly, Gregory concerning the persecution. In like manner S. Isidore, after relating the brave deeds of the same king in war, goes on to say : " But the error of impiety obscured the glory of so great valour. In fine, filled with perfidious rage, he instituted a persecution against the Catholics, banished very many of the bishops, deprived the churches of their revenues and their privi- leges, and by his terrible doings drove many into the Arian heresy and pestilence ; others he allured and deceived by gifts of gold and riches. Among other of his heretical abominations, he even presumed to re-baptize the Catholics, and not only those of the common people, but even those of sacerdotal order, such as Vincentius, bishop of Caesar- Augustum, 2 who from a bishop became an apostate, and as it were fell from heaven into hell." Gregory tells us what was the more immediate cause of this persecution. The instigator of this wickedness was Goisuintha, 1 Such I conjecture to be the meaning of the expression 'facie decocti. ' ^ Saragossa. LFXT. v.] Lewigild. 16 1 ■whom King Lewigild married after she had been married to King Athanagild. . . . But Lewigild had two sous by another wife, viz. Hermenigild and Recared, the elder of whom had married a daughter of Sigebert, and the younger a daughter of Chilperic. Ingundis the daughter of Sigebert was brought into Spain with great ceremony, and was received with great joy by her grand- mother Goisuintha, for Ingundis was the daughter of Brunehilde, who was the daughter of this Goisuintha. But she would not suffer her to remain in the Catholic religion, but began to per- suade her with flattering speeches to be re-baptized in the Ariau heresy. But she, strenuously resisting, said, It is enough for me to have been once washed from original sin in the baptism of salvation, and to have confessed the holy Trinity in undivided equality. This I declare that I believe with my whole heart, nor shall I ever go back from this faith. On this Goisuintha became furious, seized her by the hair of the head, threw her on the ground, and trampled on her till she was covered with blood. Then she ordered her to be stripped and thrown into a fish-pond. But never did her mind swerve from the true faith. Then Lewigild gave to Ingundis and her husband one of the cities, in which they should live and reign. Whither when they had repaired, Ingundis began to urge upon her husband to abandon the deceit of heresy, and acknowledge the truth of the Catholic faith. This for a long time he refused, but at last he was converted to the Catholic law, and when he was anointed,' he took the name of John. A civil war afterwards broke out between Hermeni- gild and his father ; and it is noticeable that Baronius very distinctly represents that Hermenigild was fully justified in going to war with his father, simply because that father was an Arian ! The historian goes on to relate many contests in miracle - working ' The Arians who embraced the Catholic faith were not re-baptized, but they were anointed with chrism, to show the imperfection of their previous baptism. L 1 6 2 MedicBval Missions. between the two parties, one challenging the other to restore the blind to sight ; or throwing a ring into the fire, and daring the other to take it out with his hand when it had been made red-hot ; an Arian general seized with fever on the day on which he has plundered a monastery, cured on the intercession of the abbot on his promising to restore the spoil, relapsing when he refuses to keep his promise, and dying because the abbot refuses again to intercede for him. Her- menigild was defeated by his fcither, and thrown into prison. Here he was plied with entreaties and assur- ances of pardon if he would recant. But he stedfastly refused, and was put to death by his father's orders, — a death of martyrdom, according to the church his- torians ; a judgment with which we shall probably hesitate to concur. Lewigild survived his son only a year. He died in 585, and was succeeded by his other son Eecared. He soon embraced the orthodox faith, and strove as zealously in its support as his father had done for its extirpation, and, it is to be feared, by pretty much the same means, punishment and bribery. From this time, however, the Catholic faith became the national faith of Spain. I need not say that orthodoxy has nothing to boast of respecting the whole of its conflict with the Arian heresy. The more we detest that heresy, the more do we regret that its downfall should have been accomplished otherwise than by the glory LECT. v.] Mohammedan Spain. i6 J of God in the face of Jesus Christ shining in the hearts of men. If persecution on the one hand, and bribery on the other, are not so simply and absolutely evil that they admit of no degrees of comparison, they are worst of all when they are employed in support of that most profound, yet most practically important mystery, with which are associated the doctrines of substitution, and atonement, and impiited righteous- ness, and all that distinguishes Christianity from a more refined heathenism. In the maintenance of this gospel we need not, and should never use, the weapons of carnal warfare or the arts of a carnal policy. We preach Christ crucified. Behold our armour, for offence and for defence ; and we do foul injustice to our cause if we have recourse to the breastplate or the spear of Saul, in preference to the smooth stones, thrown in faith, and carried home by the demonstration and the power of the Spirit of the Lord of hosts. During the last years of the sixth century, the whole of the seventh, and the first years of the eighth century, Spain formed no part of the proper mission- field, however much it might need careful and laborious culture as a newly reclaimed and imperfectly cultivated portion of the Christian field. It is to be feared that such culture it did not get, and that while the truth was professed, and while there are extant records of many provincial synods or councils which indicate scrupulous orthodoxy on the part of the Spanish 164 MedicBval Missions. bishops, and abundant zeal regarding the externals of religion, there was but little of the faith working by- love, without which orthodoxy and ritualism are equally as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal But ere long, Spain became again a proper field for Christian missions. Early in the eighth century it was conquered by the Mohammedans, and remained for five centuries in their hand. It will be necessary here to give some account of the rise of Moham- medanism, and of its progress up to the time at which we come into contact with it in North- Western Africa and South-Western Europe. The facts of the life of Mohammed are generally well known. Many ques- tions as to his character, and the character of the Mohammedan system, have been keenly disputed, and are not yet, and will probably never be, absolutely decided. These questions do not immediately concern us, and I shall not enter upon the discussion of them, although, from the occasions that I have had to give attention to them, the discussion would be one in which I should engage with pleasure. That Moham- med was the purely virtuous man, the pure patriot, the earnest reformer, the universal philanthropist, the ardent aspirant after the pure worship of God, I believe few who are capable of judging will be pre- pared now to maintain, as it has been maintained by his panegyrists in former days. That, on the other hand, he was a simple monster of iniquity, delighting LECT. v.] Mohammed. 165 in the two employments of unlimited blood-shedding and unlimited sensuality to. a greater extent than that to which any other man in his age and country delighted in them, will also, I believe, be regarded as too extreme a statement. He was- an Oriental. He became an Oiiental potentate, and he had the Oriental idea that the privilege of a potentate included indulgence in sensuality. He considered himself entitled to> such indulgence, and he claimed it. For this idea, and for the claim founded upon it, I am far frO'Ui apologizing. Only I say that, in judging of the character of Mohammed, we ought to remember that in this respect he acted just as every other man of his age and his country would have acted. It is to the gospel \rice It. firf., THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE CHURCHES OF GALATIA. ?12Eit|^ Introtiuction anlj flotcs BY TUB REV. JAMES MACGREGOR, D.D., PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THKOLOGY IN THE NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH, NOTICES. ' The Handbook on Galatians, by Professor Macgregor, has many merits. The " Introduction " is masterly. In a clear and racy manner Dr. Macgregor goes over all topics usually discussed under that head, omits no essential point, and affords abundant evidence that he has mastered all the important literature of the subject. ... The brief commentary is exceedingly good. The leading points are seized and expounded with great felicity.' — Aberdeen Fix'C Press. 'TVe cannot speak too strongly in commendation of Dr. Macgregor's effort. The book is strong (brevity is one of the features and beauties of the scheme), but it contains much in little. Sound, fresh, vigorous, readable, and learned, it opens tip the Epistle in a way which makes its meaning plain to the com- monest capacity. No minister lecturing through Galatians should be without it; and the teacher of a Bible class may now, with it in his hand, venture to take the Epistle as a text-book.' — Free Church Becord. ' Careful study of Professor Macgregor's work on the Epistle to the Galatians, constrains us to declare that the series has begun well.' — Daily Review. ' We commend the work to Bible-class teachers, and can assure them that they will find in this Handbook material which, while likely to raise the tone of their own spirituality, will at the same time provide them with matter eminently calculated to enlighten their classes.' — Scottish Congregational Magazine. 'Professor Macgregor has a grasp of his subject, and the theological notes, qua theological, in the Introduction are excellent. An admirable outline of contents is given, to which the theological notes just referred to are an addition. 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