message to their countrymen at home, bidding them leave their gloomy forests and swamps and come over to Britain; and they came in shiploads, with their wives and their children and their herds. They were very fierce and destructive in war. They burnt the houses and slew the inhabitants. Many of the Britons died fighting, and a great many more became the slaves of the English; and the remainder were forced to fly from the beautiful cities which the Romans had built to the mountains and rocks of Wales and Cornwall, where their descendants still live.

3. ST. AUGUSTINE (A.D. 597).

1. All these barbarous nations, and the English amongst them, were heathens; they all believed that there were many gods dwelling in the earth and in the sky. But the Romans by this time had become Christians; for ever since the death of Jesus Christ good men had been spreading the knowledge of His life and His teaching in every land of the Roman Empire; and at last an emperor named Constantine learnt the Christian religion, and after this, Christianity became the religion of the emperors, and churches were built all over Europe.

2. The Britons had been heathens when the Romans came. They had priests called Druids, who used to take poor boys and lay them naked on great blocks of stone, and kill them with sharp knives, while the

people stood round and chanted hymns. They thought that their gods were pleased by children's blood. But at length the Roman missionaries persuaded the Britons to worship God as Jesus Christ had taught men. there were many churches in Britain when the Romans left, and many Christians also.

So

3. The English, who had come over in their ships, hated the Christians. The god they most honoured was Woden, the god of war; but the Christians said that their worship of him was wicked, and that the practices which were thought to please him were wicked also, and that the only way to please God was to be kind and true and forgiving, and to spend one's life, not in pleasure, or in idleness, or in gain, but in doing as much good as possible to all around. So wherever the English came they burnt the churches and drove out the Christians, until all the inhabitants of Britain were again heathens, except only those who had fled to Wales and Cornwall.

4. But after many years, a holy man called Augustine came from Rome to preach the religion of Christ to the English people. By this time England was divided into many kingdoms, and over each kingdom there was a king, who was believed to be a descendant of Woden, the god of war; and they were always fighting with each other and with the British. But King Ethelbert, who ruled over Kent, had married a French princess called Bertha, who was a Christian; and so when he heard that Augustine had come from Rome, he received him courteously. Bertha gave Augustine and his companions food and drink, and saw that they

were properly lodged and honourably cared for; and about a year later she persuaded King Ethelbert to be baptised, and promise to try and live as Christ had bidden men.

5. After this Augustine and his companions went about England preaching diligently, and a great many were persuaded by their words. But it was not till many years after this that the English became Christians.

4. BEDE, THE MONK OF JARROW (B. 672; D. 735). 1. There were few churches in England then ; and most of the towns and villages where men live nowadays were waste and wild. The forests were full of wolves and robbers, and the English were always fighting amongst each other. The good men who came after St. Augustine, and preached Christianity to them, used to gather together in great houses, called monasteries or abbeys, so that they might live quietly out of the strife, and give all their lives to praying and working and learning. Then they went forth and preached, and afterwards returned again to the monastery. They had no wives nor children, and they did not dress like other men, but wore black serge gowns and hoods, so that all might know them to be monks.

2. One of the most famous of these monasteries was at Jarrow, in the north of England, and the most famous monk there was Bede. He wore a serge

B

gown like the others, and had a little room with a stone floor to live in, and a hard bed of bare boards to sleep on, and scarcely any furniture besides; for the monks lived very plain and hard lives, lest they should become fond of comfort and forget to serve God always.

3. Now almost all books at that time were written in the Latin language, and only learned people understood Latin; so whenever Bede read a Latin book which he thought would be good for everybody to read, he set to work to translate it into the English language. He began to translate into English the Gospel of St. John, that Englishmen might for the first time read it for themselves; but at last he came to die. Bede could not bear to leave his work unfinished, so the more weak and ill he felt the more eager he was to end it. "Go on quickly," he said; "I know not how long I shall hold out, and whether my Maker will not soon take me away." His eyes were dim, and he could not read for himself, and his hand was too weak to hold the pen. But his scholars helped him; one boy read to him and another wrote for him.

4. By-and-by he grew weaker and weaker, and his breath came with difficulty, so that it was painful to him to speak; but the book was not yet finished, so in the early morning he called his scholars to his bedside and bade them begin again to read and write. The boys said to him, "Master, there is still a whole chapter wanting, and you are too worn out to think any more." But Bede answered, "It will be done