mm M p)N » cmsiiANi TT/IM^ M. cS'TUBB iiiltlillH^ iiiiiiiili iill.: jllliiililiiHijii liiiiiliiliiiii i iliiilii i! ^rarfinwniff iililiiiliiiiiiijliiiliiiiiiiiiiiijiiy^ ., , ,; ! j h !J j V iii: II I ^^\ ^^^^ Columbia ^luibcrsittp «itI)cCitpo0^fUigork LIBRARY GIVEN BY \^^«,.O^VsCe. ?e^^ ^resideat's Ofi oe How Europe Was Won For Christianity Rembrandt ST. PAUL IN PRISON How Europe Was Won For Christianity * Being the Life-Stories of the Men Concerned in Its Conquest By M. WILMA STUBBS " Great men need not that we praise them ; the need is ours that we know them." —Arthur C. McGiffert New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1913, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave. Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street To MY MOTHER whose Christian faith has been my constant inspiration, this book is affectionately inscribed FOREWORD THE title of the present volume may at first thought seem applicable only to Part One. Not so. Europe was not truly won for Chris- tianity until she was awakened to " the marching or- ders " of her Commander. In other words, Europe evangelized must mean Europe evangelizing. In relating the life-stories of the heroic men who had a part in this great work, we have necessarily touched upon many and widely differing beliefs and methods. With reference to most of these we have striven to remain neutral, discovering the lesson which may be of common profit to all. If we believe in the progress of mankind, we must acknowledge that to- day's vision is far broader than yesterday's. From this fact, however, arises the danger of ignoring the past or of interpreting it by to-day's standards. Let us the rather estimate the faith and work of those medicEval missionaries in the same spirit that we should desire the historian of a thousand years hence to judge the missionary heroes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Everywhere we have used the word saint in its broadest sense, a term to denote the consecrated, heroic Christian labourer. And we do well to honour the great and good men and women of the past as members with us of the great Church Universal. Let us rejoice in their victories and conquests. Needless to say, God's saints are not of one age or of one sphere 7 8 FOREWOIID of labour. We have them with us in the home and in the business mart, and because we know the majesty of their lives we are able to understand the heroism of other and different ages. Let no one say that in recognizing the needs of distant lands we are underrating the splendid and truly missionary work glorifying the crowded, sor- rowing, sinning streets of our great cities — the social work, which stirs the blood of all who read. Yet every sincere follower of the Master must recognize that He has other sheep and that all must be brought to know the great compassionate heart of the Father. My hearty thanks are due to the Bangor Theological Seminary for access to the rich store of missionary literature which the Seminary Library contains; to the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission for permission to use the portrait of Christian Friedrich Schwartz and the view of Ziegenbalg's church, Tranquebar; and to Professor Harlan P. Beach, of Yale University, for the kind loan of his photograph of the Schwartz monument, Tanjore. M. W. S. CONTENTS PART I THE AGE OF HEROES I, The Linking OF THE Old AND THE New . 17 II. The Prince of Missionaries ... 24 Paul the Apostle III, A Missionary-Bishop 37 Widfila the Goth IV. Bondsman and Emancipator ... 46 The Story of Patricius V. The Apostles of Galloway and Strath- CLYDE 5^ Ninian and Ketitigern VI. The Dove of the Churches . . .65 Cohmiba and the Missionary Institute of lona VII. A Voice from the Desert ... 78 Severinus, Hermit-Missionary VIII. Celtic Missionaries on the Continent 83 Columbanus and Gallus IX. The Founder of Canterbury . . 92 Augustine and the Conversion of Kent X. A Roman Bishop and a Northumbrian King 107 Paulinus and Eadwine 9 10 CONTENTS XI. The Glory of the North Country . 121 Aidan and Cuthbert XII. Whom the Briton Honours . . . 131 £ng la fid's Lesser Apostles XIII. Labourers in Friesland .... 141 Amajidus, Eligius, Wilfrid^ Willibrord, Liudger^ and Willehad XIV. The Monk of Nutscelle . . . 151 Winfrid, Better Known as Boniface XV. The Apostle of the North . . . 163 Ansgar^ Bishop of Hamburg XVI. Messengers Among the Slavs . . 173 Cyril {Constantine) arid Methodius XVII. Martyrs for Their Faith . . . 179 Trudpert, Kilian, the Jfewalds, Wenceslaus, Adalbert, and Gottschalk PART II DARKNESS AND DAYBREAK I. Backgrounds 189 II. "The Little Brother" . . . 205 St. Francis of Assisi III. A Knight of Old Spain . . . 219 Raymund Lull IV. The Protector of the Oppressed . 230 Bartholomi de las Casas V. For the Greater Glory of God . 245 Jesuit Labourers CONTENTS 11 VI. Heroes of the Ice-Bound North . . 258 The Egedes in Greenland VII. The Pilgrims' Watch . . . .272 Moravian Missions VIII. Heralds of a New Day in India . 285 Ziegenbalgf Fliitschau, Schultze, Schwartz Appendices 3°' I. Notes on Text. II. Notes on Illustra- tions. III. Selections from the Con- fession of St. Patrick. IV. Part of a Letter sent by the Tranquebar Mis- sionaries to George I of England. V. Chronology. ILLUSTRATIONS I. St. Paul in Prison — Rembrandt . Frontispiece 2. Ancient Celtic Cross, Iona 3A. St. Martin's Church, Canterbury 3B. Canterbury Cathedral 4. Ruins on Holy Isle . 5. Melrose Abbey 6. The " Hill-Fortress " of Durham 7. The Book of Martyrdom . 8. Statue of St. Eligius — Di Banco 9. St. Ansgarius Releasing Heathen Boy FROM Yoke of Paganism — Steinhauser 10. St. Francis of Assisi 11. Allegory of Poverty — Giotto 12. The Voyage of the Vikings — Hendrich 13. Bergen Harbour .... 14. Jerusalem Church, Tranquebar 15. Christian Friedrich Schwartz 16. Schwartz Monument and Inscription Tanjore .... FACING PAGE 75 lOI lOI 121 128 130 138 143 171 205 210 258 264 286 293 297 PART I THE AGE OF HEROES " It will be found, if I mistake not, that the resemblances of early and recent missions are far greater than their contrasts; that both alike have had to surmount the same difficulties and have been chequered by the same vicissitudes ; that both alike exhibit the same inequalities of progress, the same alternations of success and failure, periods of acceleration followed by peri- ods of retardation, when the surging wave has been sucked back in the retiring current, while yet the flood has been rising steadily all along, though the unobservant eye might fail to mark it, advancing toward the final consummation when the earth shall be covered with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. History is an excellent cordial for the drooping courage. — Lightfoot, " Co77iparative Progress of Ancient and Modern Missions." " I see How every time with every time is knit. And each to all is mortised cunningly, And none is sole or whole, yet all is fit." — Sidney Lanier, " Ac^'now/edgmeni." THE LINKING OF THE OLD AND THE NEW " For us thy martyrs die, thy prophets see." * THERE is no greater romance than the story of Christian missions. From Paul's time to our own day the life histories of the men and women who have gone out beyond their own borders to win new conquests for the Master have been stories of high adventure, of noble ambition, of mighty achievement and holy living hard to match in any other department of the world's history. Some of the grandest heroism of modern time has been shown on the mission fields of East and West. Said President McKinley not long before his death, " The missionary of whatever church or ecclesiastical body, who devotes his life to the service of the Master and of men, carry- ing the torch of truth and enlightenment, deserves the gratitude, the support, and the homage of mankind. The noble, self-effacing, willing ministers of peace and good-will should be classed with the world's heroes." ^ Of like heroism with the missionary heroes of yes- terday and to-day were the conquerors for the faith^ in mediaeval Europe. Among the forests of Germany, in the tangled morasses of the Low Countries, on the 1 Lowell, " To the Past." 2 Speer, "Christianity and the Nations." 3 Faith in its large sense. Creeds change, faith is the same in every age. 17 18 LINKING OF THE OLD AND THE NEW white cliffs of Britain, and the lonely islands and heather-clad hills of Scotland, or amid the fiords of Norway, these messengers of good tidings pushed their way fearlessly, counting no suffering too great for souls redeemed and lives made happy. With a cour- age and a consecration which no later day has sur- passed they faced perils all the greater because the mystery of the unknown rested upon them. For the salvation of immortal souls these men braved the ter- rors of the wilderness, of the wild beast, of heathen fury; they toiled patiently with their hands that labour might be made honourable and farm and homestead succeed war and pillage; they spent their lives in journeyings, often on foot, that there might be no soul, however ignorant or humble, who had not heard the Gospel message; they made the mission station a light for the mind as well as for the soul, and many of the great schools of mediaeval Europe owed their origin to the missionary-monk; finally, they met death itself courageously, even gladly, if so be that the Master's name was glorified. Yet against what odds did they work! An empire fallen, new nations in the making, nowhere peace or rest. In Latin and Greek lands old civilizations to be remoulded on new lines and permeated with a new spirit, a task great enough without the added respon- sibiHty of the conversion of the barbarian. And in truth that task was largely assumed by men from nations not yet a century out of heathenism. Ireland and Scotland, more than half of England, Germany, and the Netherlands were won not by Roman but by Celtic and English missionaries. No large home church supported them by prayers and gifts. They knew little of the countries to which they went ; they LINKING OF THE OLD AND THE NEW 19 were surrounded by almost^Gonstant warfare, by im- morality, by ignorance; they were themselves hin- dered by superstition and narrow outlook. The world they knew was small, the means at their com- mand were meagre, behind them was no long line of missionary heroes. They were blazing a path through the primeval forest of missionary activity, and be it said to their honour they were of true pioneer courage and strength. The secret of that strength lay in their great and mighty faith in the reality of the things not seen. They knew in whom they trusted, and with a great missionary educator ^ of our own land might have said, " What are Christians in the world for but to achieve the impossible by the help of God? " The glory of these early missionary labourers is that so many of them never dreamed that right could be im- possible, so unquestioning was their faith in the power of the God in whom they believed. And what did their faith accomplish? In England, where their efforts reached their most normal fulfil- ment, within a century of the first preaching of the Christ idolatry had been driven from the island, schools were springing up in all the Anglo-Saxon king- doms, codes of law were being written out, and in the unity of the church a force had been introduced which within the next one hundred and fifty years would make of those separate kingdoms one English people. " Nowhere in all Europe," writes an English his- torian, " did the missionaries appeal so exclusively as they did in England to higher and purer motives. Nowhere but in England were to be found kings like Oswald and Oswini, who bowed their souls to the les- son of the Cross and learned that they were not their 1 General Armstrong. 20 LINKING OF THE OLD AND THE NEW own, but were placed in power that they might use their strength in helping the poor and needy." ^ Sec- onded by their rulers these missionaries transformed the land. Agriculture took the place of warfare, edu- cational institutions nourished some of the leading scholars of the age, the study of the art of building filled the land with noble churches, and an extensive literature in the Latin and Anglo-Saxon languages came into being. In a word Christian civilization was allowed to prove its latent possibilities. But the truest test of their conversion was after all the missionary zeal which prevailed among the new converts. That they were so eager to carry the good news to their still heathen neighbours proves how pre- cious their faith had become to them. Columba and Aiden, Willibrord and Boniface, and the. many Irish and Saxon missionaries of the seventh and eighth cen- turies went out from countries which were hardly yet beyond the missionary stage. Through the efforts of men like these Germany and the Low Countries re- ceived the faith of Christ and by the close of the eighth century had abandoned the old faiths except in the Slavic borderlands. Three centuries more were necessary for the conversion of the Danes and the Scandinavians, but how solid was the foundation which was finally laid for the superstructure of north- ern Christianity. All honour to those missionary saints who by their heroic lives won Europe to the Christ. With their triumphant struggles against al- most overwhelming odds for precedent, let us ques- tion ourselves with reference to our duty, yea, our opportunity and privilege. The cry of our day is for a wider vision. No 1 Gardiner, " History of England." LINKING OF THE OLD AND THE NEW 21 longer are we content with mere segments of the circle. Discussions of world problems, of world poli- tics fill our magazines and papers; our universities are studying comparative literature, comparative religion, and the correlation of the intellectual and spiritual forces of the universe. As a result, the modern man or woman of education and culture is becoming in- creasingly cosmopolitan in his sympathies. Nor is this true of the West alone; the dormant nations of the East are rousing themselves from their agelong slumber and threaten finally to outstrip us in the race. Within the last fifty years Europe and America have entered a new world of possibility. Some one has said that the nineteenth century made the world one neighbourhood, and that the twentieth shall make it one brotherhood. What more splendid achievement could be possible for the Christian countries of the world than to meet the awakening intellectual con- sciousness of the Eastern empires with the out- stretched hand of Christian brotherhood and to win them to a definite and national acceptance of the re- ligion of the Christ ! Here, then, is our opportunity, vaster than any of which the Past ever dreamed. To the Christians of America there has come in these latter days perhaps the greatest opportunity ever presented to the Church of Christ in all the long centuries since the followers of the risen Saviour be- gan telling to friend and neighbour a blessed new hope of life abundant and unending. All that our Christ means to us, all that He reveals of the possessions which neither time nor place nor eternity itself can ever take from us, all that glorious heritage of a Christianity that is Christian in deed as well as in name, we have the privilege of giving to men and 22 LINKING OF THE OLD AND THE NEW women from well-nigh every country under the broad heavens, men and women who are with us and will continue to be with us for weal or woe, and who in turn will exert an incalculable influence upon the lands from which they have come out. But if the field is so much broader than in those early years, how much more adequate are the means to meet the need. Money and business acumen are not lacking in the membership of our churches, nei- ther do we believe is consecration. Again, precedent and experience are ours. Organization has made vast undertakings feasible. The centuries have brought wisdom and power. A work equal to the efforts of many labourers in those far-off centuries is being ac- complished to-day by the Christian press. Medical and industrial schools bring to thousands in non- Christian lands the practical, healing touch of a re- ligion that cares for suffering, that will have mercy and not sacrifice. Greater than all these forces is that vast army of Christian souls to whom the faith committed to them by the Fathers, and theirs now by precious experience, is become a sacred trust not to be kept for their own well-being, but to be carried to every man, woman, and child for whom Christ died. Through faith those early missionaries with few material resources at their command subdued kingdoms that had long been strongholds of paganism. Shall we of to-day do less? In mighty empires the gates of opportunity are opening to the entrance of Truth. The priests of age-old religions look out upon crumbling walls and murmur " Jesus." Yes, it is He whose own the king- doms of the world shall be. Can He count on us as His ambassadors? LINKING OF THE OLD AND THE NEW 23 The long, dark night has broken at last. Already upon a thousand hills the silvery streaks of the dawn are deepening into the full flushes of the morning. There is need only of the earnest and united efforts of the Master's servants to bring the promise of the morning to the glory of the noontide, when no one shall teach his neighbour or say to his brother, Know the Lord, for all shall know Him from the least even to the greatest. And to this end, beginning at Jeru- salem, — with the place and the need that lie nearest us, — " Ye shall be my witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth." " The world sits at the feet of Christ, Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled ; It yet shall touch his garment's fold, And feel the heavenly Alchemist Transform its very dust to gold." II THE PRINCE OF MISSIONARIES Paul the Apostle •' Oft when the Word is on me to deliver Opens the heaven, and the Lord is there ; Desert or throng, the city or the river, Melt in a Paradise of air, — " Only like souls I see the folk thereunder, Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be kings, — Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder, Sadly contented in a show of things ; — " Then, with a rush, the intolerable craving Shivers throughout me like a trumpet call, — Oh, to save them ! — to perish in their saving. Die for their life, be offered for them all ! " —F. W. H. Myers, " 5/. Pau/." THE busy harbor of Neapolis was thronged to the full with sailing craft of every sort on that far-away afternoon in the year of our Lord 50. Grain vessels unloading heavy cargoes, merchant galleys taking on ladings of oil and wine, and the small fishing boats of the harbour filled the air with the min- gled shouts of the sailors and the groaning of the ponderous bales as they were lowered from the ware- houses. Out beyond the forest of masts the quiet waters of the bay had caught the deep blue of the Grecian heaven, which far off on the horizon line 24 PAUL THE APOSTLE 25 melted into a purple haze on the hills of Thasos. Around the low shores at the harbour's eastern en- trance a small vessel was slowly making its way, the high curved prow and stern and square sail forming a quaint picture in the afternoon sunlight as the galley bore on toward shore, its banks of oars rising and fall- ing with a strong and rhythmic sweep. One ship more or less at the already crowded docks — what could it matter? The Neapolitan merchant in his flowing himation would come and carefully inspect his newly arrived merchandise, and the galley, having taken on board her store of olive oil, would sail out again over the blue waters of the bay as so many other vessels had done that very year. In the company of those who watched the good ship's entrance on that summer afternoon was there no prophet to foresee that hundreds of years there- after, when of " the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome " only magnificent ruins re- mained, the small, rather insignificant-looking man in Jewish dress, who with two or three companions had taken passage at Troas and whose landing here was scarcely noticed by the motley crowd on the wharves, would be remembered and honoured from the snowclad mountains of the north to the sunny vineyards of the south, from the western isles to the barren steppes beyond the Danube, while the message he brought to Europe that day would hold dominion in millions of hearts when the gods of Rome and of Hellas were beautiful myths of the past? Strange and incomprehensible would such a prophecy have seemed to the pagan Neapolitan. Yet that is precisely what the landing of Paul with his friends Silas and Tim- othy and the unknown author of the " we " passages £6 THE PRINCE OF MISSIONARIES of the Acts meant to Europe, as " having loosed from Troas we came with a straight course to Samothracia and the next day to Neapolis " on the great apostle's second missionary journey and first entrance into Europe. In the first century, as at the present day, the great highway which led to Thessalonica on the Themiaic Bay, after leaving Neapolis, climbed the low hills on the western shore of the bay and thence, crossing the plateau of Philippi, made its first halt nine or ten miles inland at the hill town, which four hundred years earlier had been fortified by Philip of Macedon and renamed in his honour. Over this road Paul and his companions almost immediately after landing at Neapolis set out upon their first missionary tour in Greece, travelling probably on foot and perhaps stop- ping occasionally at some wayside village to talk with the people concerning the great Teacher sent to all men from the one Ruler of the Universe. And now while our little group of Jewish travellers is making its way to Philippi in the clear mountain air, let us stop for a moment to recall what manner of man this was whose word became so formative an influence in the history of Europe. Born of Jewish parents, the boy Saul had spent his childhood years in his native city of Tarsus, surrounded by Greek in- fluences, for Tarsus was a university town, a centre of Greek philosophy, though, like all the rest of the known world, under Roman dominion. The lad's father possessed the rights of Roman citizenship and may have been a man of considerable wealth and in- fluence, though, like all Jewish fathers, he prudently had his son taught a trade, choosing one popular in Tarsus, that of tentmaking. When only twelve years PAUL THE APOSTLE 27 old, Saul had been sent to Jerusalem to receive a rab- binical education under Gamaliel at the great Jewish university. Here he probably dwelt with his sister, and must very early have become a veritable Hebrew of the Hebrews. Deeply engrossed in his theological studies and full of reverence for old historic institutions and the men who represented them, Saul would hardly trouble him- self to investigate the teaching of this new prophet arisen in their midst, whom he would suppose to be only a seducer of the people gathering about him pub- licans and sinners and teaching them to disregard the ceremonial laws which formed the very basis of their religion. With all zealous Jews, Saul would rejoice in the execution of this impostor, hoping that thus the menace to their nation would be averted. Not so, for instead of being crushed out, the heresy went on increasing at an alarming rate. It was even reported that the man whom they had put to death had risen from the dead, thus proving Himself in very truth the Son of God. It became the plain duty, then, of every man loyal to his nation and to his religion to do his utmost toward blotting out this danger, even if need be at the expense of human life, though we may well believe that Saul was by nature too merciful a man to desire such punishment except in extreme cir- cumstances.^ Yet to this bitter persecutor, because he was sincere in his desire to serve God, there came at last that wonderful vision which changed Saul, the proud Pharisee, into Paul, the obedient servant of Jesus Christ, and through long years of persecution and hardship — suffering greater than we can imagine — 1 Abbott, " Life and Letters of Paul." 28 THE PRINCE OF MISSIONARIES led him to conquests for the Master beside which all other missionary labour pales as the stars fade before the light of the dawn. " And as I journeyed to Damascus, to bring them also which were there unto Jerusalem in bonds . . . about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. And I fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why perse- cutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou. Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest." Three years in the deserts of Arabia working out his new theology and fourteen years of missionary toil in " the regions of Syria and Cilicia " had not been without their effects, mental and spiritual, upon the earnest youth, who from his cosmopolitan training was especially fitted for work among the Gentiles. The Paul who is entering the city gateway of Philippi is a man in middle life, whom " perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, weariness and painfulness, watchings and hunger," have aged but not weakened, while the mellowed enthusiasm of his fiery nature has learned " to become all things to all men, that he may by all means save some," Philippi, whose ruins still crown the lonely hill on which it stood encircled by an amphitheatre of moun- tains, was the first scene of Paul's missionary labours in Europe. Here on the Sabbath following their ar- rival the three men went out beyond the city walls " to the place where prayer was wont to be made," and there in the open air by the side of the clear mountain stream told the story of Jesus Christ to the faithful women assembled for worship, of whom Lydia, " a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira," is known to PAUL THE APOSTLE 29 us by name. Yet the casting out of an unknown spirit from the damsel who brought her masters much gain by her powers of divination, or even the strange ex- periences of Paul in the Philippian prison when an earthquake shock wrenched apart the doorposts of his cell and the heavy bolts fell, leaving Paul and his companions free to escape, with the dramatic con- version of his jailor which followed, do not interest us so much as those unnamed conversions which made possible the faithful church of Philippi, or those unre- corded talks in the market-place with the idolatrous Philippians, over whom Paul must have yearned as over lost and strayed sheep. Were there those — Roman soldiers, Greek merchants, or some rich pa- trician come to the agora to buy slaves for his house- hold — who in the midst of the buying and the selling turned aside to listen to the words of this Jewish rabbi who yet was no bigot and, " almost persuaded," went away at last sadly, unwilling to take up the life of hardship and self-sacrifice that such a faith de- manded? And were there ever hours in the after lives of these men when, amid the disappointments of life, the memory of the strange, exalted speech of this man to whom they had listened long ago in the mar- ket-place, the memory, perhaps, of his words concern- ing a joy which no man could take away, would steal over them with an indefinable longing which they could not put away ? It may be so, for human nature was not so different eighteen hundred years ago from what it is to-day. And so Paul was forced to go away at last from Philippi after having been, as he tells us in his epistle to the Thessalonians, " shamefully entreated." Dis- couraged? Disheartened? You do not know this 30 THE PRINCE OF MISSIONARIES man if for a moment you think it possible. Driven from Philippi, he followed the highway through Am- phipolis and Apollonia to the thriving seaport of Thessalonica, the capital and chief city of Macedonia and a place of much greater importance than Philippi. Here he preached Christ not only to the Jews, into whose synagogue he entered on two successive Sab- baths, and where as a rabbi he would be invited to speak, but also to the Gentiles, many of whom we know from Paul's own words " turned from idols to serve the living and true God," and formed a church whose faith Godward spread abroad " not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place." As in Philippi, so in Thessalonica, Paul was not allowed to end his mission peacefully, but on account of certain accusations made by the Jews that he was guilty of treason in proclaiming another king than Caesar, found it prudent to leave the city secretly by night. The hostility of the Thessalonian Jews fol- lowed him, moreover, to Berea, and he was again forced to flee, this time leaving Silas and Timothy behind at Berea, while he went down to the seacoast and took ship for Athens. Short as was Paul's stay in the Attic capital, prob- ably only about two weeks while he was awaiting the arrival of Silas and Timothy, it was long enough for one of the most dramatic and enigmatical scenes in all his travels — the address on Mars Hill. From the rocky summit crowning the hill of the war god, Paul could look upward toward the splendid temples of the Acropolis — the architecturally perfect Parthenon and her clustering daughters, with the colossal statue of Athena wrought by the renowned Phidias — or let his gaze wander over the mighty city at his feet whose PAUL THE APOSTLE 31 name for centuries had been a synonym for art and learning and culture, the city of ^schylus and of Sophocles, of Thucydides and of Demosthenes, of Socrates and of Plato. Why is he there, we ask, and who are his audience? Is he surrounded by the Council of the Areopagus, summoned here to give account of this new teaching which he who is neither a Greek nor a graduate of any Greek school of phi- losophy has dared bring before them in the mar- ket-place? Or is this, as has been suggested, a mass meeting of those who have been listening to him down there in the agora and have come to hear a more public explanation of his theory of life and death, a great audience to whom he can speak the better from this rocky platform? Whoever his hearers may have been, we are sure that Paul, whose spirit was stirred within him by this great city given over to idolatry, to false philosophy, and to falser ideals, reasoned with them patiently, tactfully, but above all with a wonder- ful zeal and earnestness during those few moments when a greater wisdom than any yet known to Greece came to Athenian culture only to find small lodgment in the stony ground where five centuries earlier the pure teaching of Socrates had sought for fruitful soil and found only the prison and the poisonous hemlock. Save Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris and certain others, Athens was apparently untouched by the visit of the great apostle, and we do not know that any church of the living Christ was established in the great, beautiful pagan city. Perhaps Paul came nearer discouragement as he went on his way unhindered to Corinth than at any time since his arrival in Europe. He had been forced to leave Macedonia with his work still unfinished and, 82 THE PRINCE OF MISSIONARIES while he probably had not at any time contemplated a protracted mission in Athens, the cold indifference of his Athenian audience when he touched upon the deeper meanings of the gospel, the realization that " not many mighty, not many noble, not many wise " were willing to heed his message, but that to these aesthetic Greeks his words were as idle tales, must have oppressed him as no amount of actual persecution would have done, and we are not surprised to find that on his first arrival in Corinth he was with them " in weakness and in fear and much trembling." Yet out of the coldness and wickedness of this great cosmopolitan city — a Roman colony built up on his- toric Greek soil ^ and largely affected by the Orientalism which its important commercial life had introduced — Paul with the later help of Silas and Timothy gath- ered a large and prosperous church of which we learn much from the letters sent them on two later occa- sions by the apostle. If Paul felt that Corinth was a test city for the power of the gospel in Europe, he had certainly no need of longer doubting its adapta- bility to all sorts and conditions of men, since his con- verts in Corinth seem to have been drawn almost en- tirely from Gentile ranks. We can picture to ourselves the great missionary during his long stay in Corinth, labouring with his own hands in the day that he may not be dependent upon his new converts for support, for he has no mis- sionary board to sustain his work; in the long even- ings gathering about him in the home of some friend a group of those with whom perhaps his work has brought him into contact and preaching to them al- ^ Corinth was almost totally destroyed by the Romans in 146 B. C. and re-settled under Julius Csesar. PAUL THE APOSTLE 33 ways and only " Jesus Christ and Him cruci- fied." With his departure from Corinth Paul's first mis- sionary work in Europe came to a close. During these three years he had sown the seeds of a mighty harvest both by his enthusiastic personal work and by the splendid executive ability which organized the new converts into strong and effective bulwarks against the seductions of heathenism. Only twice thereafter did he visit the Greek cities where he had laboured, and then more to strengthen the churches in their new faith than for aggressive missionary work; but the seed sown by his patient labour grew silently, steadily, despite persecution, until under Constantine Christianity was recognized as the state religion of the Eastern as well as of the Western Empire. Its roots had struck down deeply into the hearts and minds of the people, making it impossible a few years later for the Emperor Julian's attempt to restore the old paganism to prove successful. The gods of Hellas were forever dead. Only the pen of the poet or the brush and chisel of the artist could thenceforth give them even a semblance of life. Seven years after his mission in Greece Paul went to Rome, — a prisoner. How differently he had planned his first visit to the world's great capital. From the beginning of his apostleship he had cher- ished the hope that after his duty to the nearer prov- inces had been faithfully fulfilled he might preach the gospel at Rome also and found in the very heart of the heathen empire a Christian church. But while he was still labouring in the East, other men had seen the open door and had entered in, so that at the time of his famous letter to the Romans written during his 34. THE PRINCE OF MISSIONARIES second visit to Corinth, there was already in Rome a group of disciples whose faith was " proclaimed throughout the whole world." True to his conviction that it was unwise to build on another's foundation, Paul bravely gave up his plans for evangelistic work in Rome, promising, however, to visit the little church which had grown up under the shadow of Caesar's household when, after having carried the contribu- tions of Macedonia and Achaia to the poor saints at Jerusalem, he should journey by way of Rome to the new and untouched fields of Spain. At the close of this letter to the Roman Christians, it is touching to read the apostle's request for their prayers, that he " may be delivered from them that are disobedient in Judea " and ''may come unto them in joy through the will of God." Was the shadow of the bitter experiences through which he must pass be- fore he should see these unknown friends already rest- ing upon him, — the fierce attack of the Jewish mob in the Temple ; the imprisonment in the gloomy fort- ress of Antonia; the plot of the forty Jews of which he was warned by his nephew; the wearisome night journey to Csesarea; the long two years' waiting in custody while Felix hoped for a bribe; the disappoint- ing trial before Festus and the appeal to Caesar; the winter journey to Rome with storm and shipwreck; and last of all an entrance into the Imperial capital, not for a refreshing visit with those of like precious faith before the beginning of a larger work, but as a prisoner in bonds for whom somewhere in the dim shadows of the future the sword and the martyr's crown were waiting. Very meagre is our knowledge of Paul's life after his arrival in the City of the Caesars. A picture of PAUL THE APOSTLE 35 the great missionary chained to a Roman soldier and telling the story of Christ unhindered in his own hired house to all who will come to hear it, winning doubt- less many of his stalwart keepers as soldiers of the Cross; a vision of the tireless apostle writing long letters to the Christian churches which he has planted and whose increasing conquests are his joy and crown, — such are the glimpses which have come down to us of the two years following his appeal to Csesar. May there have been a half-unconquer- able sense of loneliness as he watched the growth of the Roman church not entirely according to his teaching and ideals and realized that, honoured as he was, his own personal efforts were not necessary to its growth ? " Nevertheless because Christ is preached I do rejoice and will rejoice," he writes to his faithful Philippian friends, albeit with a little touch of resignation underlying the brave words, as if his continuance in the flesh were not needful to any except these first churches of his planting. Perhaps with his clear vision he half foresaw how un-Pauline the church at Rome would become in its doctrine and practices. Well for him that he could not know how soon the fetters of ceremonial and materialism were to bind the ecclesiastical power which should grow up on the foundations of political ascendency or how seemingly fruitless would have been his efforts to throw off forever the shackles of the Law and to make the religion of Jesus Christ a purely spiritual force. No record has been preserved of the result of Paul's trial before Csesar or of the final time or place of the apostle's martyrdom. It has been suggested that he could hardly have been set at liberty without some mention in the early Fathers of so important a victory 36 THE PRINCE OF MISSIONARIES for the Christian faith. On the other hand the Pas- toral Epistles point to a release and a second impris- onment, while reference to the apostle in writings of the next century represent him as reaching " the limit of the west," perhaps the Roman province of Hispania or Spain. But whenever his earthly mission came to a close, whether at the end of his two years' imprison- ment or in the persecutions under Nero, it was not until he had won for himself first place on the honour roll of the missionary heroes of all time. " In weari- ness and painfulness, in watchings, in cold and hun- ger, in perils of the heathen, in perils of false brethren," he had preached the gospel for many a long year and had been besides the organizer and counsellor of hundreds of churches in the very strongholds of paganism, formulating missionary methods for all who should come after him. Of this man to whom much was given — education, mental power, a wonder- ful enthusiasm — a single word has gone echoing down the ages, " Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord as thou hast en- tered into the hearts of all his followers in every land." Ill A MISSIONARY-BISHOP WULFILA THE GOTH "Thro' darkness and storm and weariness of mind and of body is there built a passage for His created ones to the gates of light." — Tennyson. IN the University Library of the ancient city of Upsala, Sweden, there is a precious manuscript, older than the Scandinavian Edda, older even than the Saxon Beowulf or the German Nibelungen- lied, — the Bible of a great missionary translated into a lost tongue and for a lost people, the Bible of Wul- fila the Goth. Upon its pages of purple vellum the strange Gothic text has been transcribed in lines of silver by what patient fingers we know not. Only a little more than a third of the original volume, which contained the four gospels, now remains, enclosed in a solid silver binding of the seventeenth century and known probably from its lettering as the Codex Ar- genteus or Silver Manuscript. During many years, while men cared more for warfare than for learning, this precious book lay hidden in the dusty library of the German monks of Werden, and the world did not trouble itself greatly that the Gothic language had perished with the Gothic kingdoms. When at last the faded manuscript pages were discovered and after many vicissitudes brought to their present home in 37 S8 A MISSIONARY-BISHOP Sweden, they were still for more than a century sup- posed to be the only fragment of Gothic literature extant. Yet in the last two hundred years the old monasteries have yielded from their rich store of treasure, fragments sufficient very nearly to complete the translation which the missionary-bishop made of the gospels and epistles and to give at least a glimpse of his work on the Old Testament. In these scattered pages, lost for m.any centuries to be brought to light in a new era of the world's thought, we read again the parable of missionary effort and missionary ac- complishment. For what is the work of Carey and the heroic men and women who have succeeded him but a continuation and an expansion of the labours of Paul and of Wulfila, of Augustine and of Columba, of Ansgar and of Boniface, interrupted for a time, it is true, but only to come to richer fruitage in these later centuries? In the years following Paul's missionary labours in Europe, the faith which He had preached found its way silently and steadily into every part of the great Roman Empire. The legions carried it with them into Gaul and Spain and Britain; persecution gained for it new adherents and broader avenues of service; in times of peace men told the glad story to neigh- bours and friends and by a new spirit of brotherly love enlisted many of them in the service of the Christ. Thus while the old pagan Rome, the Rome of splen- dour and power, climbed the mountain crest and began its slow descent into the valley beyond, a new force, whose strength lay not in material glory but in justice and mercy and holy living, was building upon the old foundations a grander and more imposing structure. But if the light was brightening over the shores of WULFILA THE GOTH 39 the Mediterranean and the Roman provinces of the west, darkness still rested heavily upon the mighty hordes of half-civilized peoples forever moving in con- fused masses beyond the portals of the Empire. Of these many folk wanderings none were of greater moment to the Empire and to Europe than that migra- tion of unknown date which brought to the shores of the Black Sea a people destined to bear no small part in the finat overthrow of Rome and the growth of new powers. Of the origin and early history of these Gothic tribes we can only conjecture.^ Not until Wulfila devised an alphabet for them in the fourth century did they possess the means of a writ- ten literature, and it was only when the rich provinces of the East tempted them to marauding inroads that mention of them appears among the Latin writers. When the searchlight of history is at last thrown upon the ancestors of Theodoric and Alaric we find them dwelling in the coast region between the Danube and the Dnieper and divided roughly into Wisigoths or West Goths and Ostrogoths or East Goths. As yet these barbarians were pagans, worshipping perhaps the same gods as their brethren of the German for- ests, and like them looking forward to the joys of mead-drinking and hunting in a Valhalla reserved for the fearless warrior. Among this fierce and impressionable folk there came as captives about the middle of the third cen- tury certain men and women of the Christian faith whom bands of Gothic pirates had brought thither with rich store of wheat and lustrous silks and carven gold and silver ornament from the Cappadocian towns across the sea. As often happens, their very misfor- tune brought to these captives an opportunity for 40 A MISSIONARY-BISHOP service which could never have been theirs in the tran- quil life of their Asiatic homes. For these fierce but hospitable Goths as they watched the simple, blame- less living of their Christian servants and felt the power of their quiet ministrations in sickness and sor- row, gave more and more heed to the message of the one God and of His Christ thus beautifully brought to them by their own hearthstones. And so by the next century we find a Christian church established among them and the name of at least one Gothic bishop among those present at the great coun- cil held at Nicsea in 325. Meanwhile events of great importance were taking place within the Empire. For the first time Roman soldiers marched to battle beneath the emblem of the Cross, and Christianity was publicly recognized. With the dying of the old faiths and the extension of dominion in the East the stately capital on the Tiber lost its prestige as the political and religious center of the Roman Empire, and a new Rome, the City of Constantine, established upon the site of the Greek Byzantium beside the blue Bosphorus, began its long career as the guardian of Roman civilization and government. Through the gates of the new capital, splendid with its recently erected public buildings, there came on a day in the later years of Constantine's reign a lad of perhaps twenty years, clothed in the garb of a Gothic nobleman, one of a band of hostages or envoys sent to Constantinople as the result of negotiations be- tween the Emperor and his dangerous neighbours across the Danube. Whether the boy Wulfila was of pure Gothic stock or, as one chronicler suggests, was descended from Cappadocian ancestors, it was never- WULFILA THE GOTH 41 theless as a representative of the Gothic people or more probably as a hostage from them, that the youth had come to the Emperor's court with doubtless naught but Gothic traditions to influence him in his memories of home. Perhaps he was already a Chris- tian, for the work begun in Eastern Gothia had not stopped there, but had gained adherents in the Danu- bian provinces as well. How valuable a picture some historian might have given us had he cared to paint the life of this young Goth during the months follow- ing his arrival in the city of the great Constantine. We should be made to see him doubtless deep in study of the Greek and Latin languages, of which we know he gained a mastery. Perhaps, too, he was now first becoming imbued with the principles of Arian- ism, which he bequeathed as a heritage to the Gothic churches of the succeeding centuries. Very surely there was being awakened within him through the influences of this Christian city a love for the Mas- ter which later led him to devote his splendid intellec- tual powers to the uplifting of a comparatively un- known people whose future he probably did not fore- see, — a work so zealously accomplished that the un- selfish missionary forever overshadows the Arian bishop. His studies completed, Wulfila became a " lector " or reader among those of his own people who were serving in the Emperor's armies. It may be that this work took him outside Constantinople to the garri- sons scattered throughout Asia Minor and that as he went from place to place reading and explaining the Scriptures to the unlettered Gothic soldiers, his com- passion for these men who listened so eagerly to the gospel story led him to begin that monumental life 4.2 A MISSIONARY-BISHOP work which places him by the side of Luther and of Wyclif. It would be interesting, if we might, to trace the growth of the apostle's missionary zeal from these beginnings down to his final consecration as Bishop of the Christians in Gothia four years after the death of Constantine. Unfortunately, the his- torians were too much concerned with matters of doc- trine to give us those little touches of daily life from which we might form a pictiire of the missionary and his great work. It was no easy task to which Wulfila had been called. A heathen prince ruled the tribes among whom the missionary began his labours, while of the people themselves the majority were probably still pagan. Centuries of turbulent history, the belief that Valhalla was open only to the valorous chief- tain, the blood of warlike ancestors, — the whole tra- ditions and character of this people, — were at vari- ance with the gentle precepts of Christianity. To break the bow and cut the spear in sunder; to gather a peace-loving, pastoral people from out this whirl- pool of temptation; to give them a written language and then a Bible, not only translated into that lan- guage but filled with figures and illustrations which they could understand, while the spirit of its teaching was kept intact; to snatch this helpless folk from the storm of persecution which their devotion brought upon them, — such was the great task which Wulfila took upon himself, as he went forth beyond the boun- daries of the Empire upon his new mission. With the helpers whom he had chosen Wulfila must have gone about among his countrymen, speaking to them in their own tongue of the things of the King- dom, healing the sick, comforting the sorrowing, con- WULFILA THE GOTH 43 futing by his words and his life the pagan faiths by which his flock was surrounded, and in his leisure moments when the day's many tasks were done zeal- ously labouring upon his great translation by which the message was to be continued when the messenger was gone. During seven years Wulfila laboured thus among his people with what results we may judge from the opposition he aroused. For at the end of this period of service a persecution was directed against the Christian Goths by their still pagan ruler, so bitter and so determined that to save his flock from utter extermination Wulfila led them forth like a great army to dwell within the borders of the Empire. Had the church in Gothia remained small and uninflu- ential, their prince would hardly have given them more than passing notice; but without question the personality of the man who to the strength of his Teutonic training added the culture of the Empire had won converts not only from the humble folk but also from the ranks of the more intelligent Goths, and had thus awakened fear and hatred in the hearts of the heathen priests. We may imagine the scenes which followed the execution of the first martyrs, — the secret councils, the hurried and stealthy preparations for flight, the sad departure from their homes, the long and diffi- cult passage of the Danube by so great a host, carry- ing with them doubtless their household effects and their cattle, and finally the founding of new homes be- neath the shadow of the Balkans. Then the curtain falls again upon the picture of the great missionary and his faithful church. For more than thirty years longer we know that he lived and laboured among 44 A MISSIONARY-BISHOP this people whom he had led forth from spiritual and material bondage. During this time we are sure that he did not cease his work among the farther Goths, sending out missionaries doubtless to preach in differ- ent parts of the western provinces. At home he would concern himself with the education of the youth of his people, as in the case of Auxentius, his pupil and biographer, and with writing expositions for his faithful flock or preparing tracts in the inter- ests of Arianism. He was besides the judge, the counsellor, and the spiritual father of all this Meso- Gothic people, and may also at times have attended the great religious gatherings of the Empire with which a man of so much influence and intellectual power would keep in closest touch. During the last years of the bishopric of Wulfila renewed migrations brought his countrymen in large numbers from the provinces beyond the Danube, for the Hunnish hosts had appeared among them, burn- ing and slaying wherever they went, and there was no longer any safety in the home country. The first of these bands of refugees were led by a Christian prince, Fritigern. But the promises which the Roman emperor made them not being kept by his of- ficials, the first year which the Goths spent in the Em- pire was signalized by ravaging and burning of the provinces so far as Thrace and by a final defeat of the Emperor Valens near Adrianople in 378. Under Theodosius, the successor of Valens, these Gothic tribes, which had been augmented by later arrivals, at last found homes along the southern shores of the Danube, accepted Christianity according to the Arian creed when they were not already Christians, and be- came influential subjects of the Eastern Empire. WULFILA THE GOTH 45 How much or how little Wulfila had to do with the Christianizing of these new Gothic subjects we do not know. A little more than two years after the battle of Adrianople the veteran missionary of the Goths was summoned to Constantinople to defend his doctrines against new beliefs. But Wulfila was an old man now, worn out with incessant labours, and when he found himself at last within the city where he had been brought so many years before a hostage to the emperor's court, and when he found the city given over to all the bitterness of religious controversy, his strength failed him and the new year saw the passing of a great man and a faithful labourer. A few days later in the same city there died one of the last great leaders of Gothic paganism, perhaps the very prince who had persecuted the church of Wulfila's planting, — the heathen chief Athanaric, who, forced to take refuge within the Empire, had come to Constantino- ple to do homage to the emperor. The future was decided. Athanaric the heathen had failed, and Wulfila the Christian had won the Gothic people to a better way. IV BONDSMAN AND EMANCIPATOR The Story of Patricius " He rose a man who laid him down a slave, Shook from his locks the ashes of the grave, And outward trod Into the glorious liberty of God. " So went he forth ; but in God's time he came To light on Uilline's hills a holy flame ; And, dying, gave The land a saint that lost him as a slave," — Whtttier, " The Proclamation:' WHILE Wulfila the Goth was preaching the gospel to his kinsfolk on the borders of the Eastern Empire, far to the west, beyond Roman Britain, where the angry surges of the At- lantic break upon Irish coasts, there already existed, if we may believe tradition, a considerable pagan civilization, which needed only the life-giving mes- sage of the great Patricius to develop that age of Irish learning the influence of which became Europe's guiding star in the long night of the Dark Ages. That there were Christians in Ireland when Patri- cius began his mission in the island we know almost certainly. Of those first converts, however, we have no written record. We tread, indeed, a land of shadows, when we touch the whole subject of Ire- land's evangelization. But we can conjecture some- 46 THE STORY OF PATRICIUS 47 thing of it all — how one and another heard the mes- sage in some foreign port or listened to the words of the Christian captives whom their pirate bands had brought back from successful raids on British or Gallic coasts, until throughout the villages which dot- ted the hills and glens of eastern Hibernia many a seeker after truth was to be found ready to welcome the great missionary when he came at last among them to devote his life to the development of these scattered beginnings. The task of Patricius was not, then, the task of Augustine or of Aidan among the Saxons and Angles of Britain two centuries later. The work of Ireland's great apostle was rather to strengthen and unify the Christianity already exist- ing, to influence the Irish princes in its favour, and to preach the gospel in districts as yet untouched by its influence. So covered are the real facts of his life and work by the thick stratum of fantastic legend which has formed in the centuries since his death that it is diffi- cult to obtain a very satisfactory picture of the man who made the Christian church a permanent institu- tion in Ireland. Yet from one and another source we may gather enough to convince us that the real Patricius was one of the most sane and apostolic of labourers. Although he has been so entirely appro- priated by the Irish nation and the Irish church, Pa- tricius went to Ireland a foreign missionary, and to the end of his life remained loyal to the home coun- try. He was not Irish, though he had served in bondage among the Scots and had learned to love his warlike yet tolerant captors. Years later when he returned to the land of his captivity on his great mis- sion he encountered much opposition from his British 48 BONDSMAN AND EMANCIPATOR friends and kinsmen and left them " with tears and weeping," for though Scots and Britons were prob- ably both of Celtic stock, yet the two peoples facing each other across the Irish sea were of a differing speech and to all intents and purposes strangers and foreigners. I have said, too, that Patricius was one of the most apostolic of Christian missionaries. Let any one who doubts this statement read that noble document, his Confession, which is universally con- ceded to be genuine.^ No mention of the wonderful miracles which later writers have attributed to him will you find in its pages. What you do find always and only is a simple, strong faith in the Christ whom he followed and whose life and words he so diligently studied. " Indoctus " he may have been in secular scholarship, but, like the prisoner in Bedford jail, he knew his Bible and even more than Bunyan had caught the truly unselfish spirit of its teaching. Its imagery and its language gave power to his pen, while in the brief Confession we find no fewer than twenty-five direct quotations from the Scriptures. Such evidence can leave us very little in doubt of the simplicity of the gospel he preached. Yet in this love of the grand old Book Patricius is but a type of that whole noble army of Christian missionaries con- cerned in the evangelization of Europe. Almost without exception they were men who fed the springs of their soul life upon the word of God. Had the work they began gone on in the spirit of its founders, normal growth would have removed the necessity of a Reformation, Patricius, known to the church as St. Patrick, and probably called by his British parents Succat, was ^See Appendix III. THE STORY OF PATRICIUS 49 born in the last years of the fourth century in the village of Bannova or Benneventa, — a place which has been variously located in southeastern Britain, at Dumbarton on the Clyde, and even in Armoric Gaul. The family, as their name implies, were of good birth and possessed the rights of Roman citizenship. Both father and grandfather had taken orders in the church,^ perhaps to avoid the heavy taxes incumbent on the landed classes, though they seem still to have retained their property. When Patricius was in his seventeenth year a company of Irish Scots, probably under Niall of the Nine Hostages, plundered the whole district about Benneventa, carrying off many youth as captives to Ireland, among whom was Pa- tricius. The next six years the British lad served a hard master herding cattle, tradition says, on the slopes of a mountain in what is now Antrim. His Confession, however, would seem to imply that the years of his captivity were spent in western Ireland, in the king- dom of Connaught.^ But whatever was the place of bondage the years of his captivity must have been lonely enough, for there was no prophet to whisper in the boy's ear how great a good his weary exile would eventually bring to Ireland. During the long days and nights on the mountainside, when the long- ing for the homeland was strong upon the lad who on his own confession " knew not the Eternal " in the days of his happy, thoughtless boyhood, Patri- cius learned to lift up his heart to the Father in heaven. " A divine awe and aspiration grew in me, so that I often prayed a hundred times a day and as *See Appendix I, Note i. *This is the view which Professor Bury holds. 50 BONDSMAN AND EMANCIPATOR many in the night. I often remained in the woods or on the hills, rising to pray while it was yet dark, in snow or frost or rain." So once more the wrath of men was made to work lasting good and the lad who had been ruthlessly torn from his parents to serve in bitter bondage in a strange land found there on the open hillslopes under the great, friendly heav- ens the Christ whom he had rejected when he felt no need of His friendship. And because he learned in those days to walk in newness of life, years after- ward the love of Christ, he tells us, constrained him to return to the folk by the western sea to establish there the worship of his Master. At last, weary of his unjust bondage, Patricius fell to thinking of a means of escape. While his mind was yet in a chaos of fear and doubt and expectation, he dreamed one night as he slept by his herds that he heard a voice saying to him, " Blessed youth, soon thou shalt return to thine own land. Behold, thy ship is ready. But it is not near, but perhaps two hundred thousand paces." On awaking, the lad at once set out for a distant port where ships were con- stantly coming and going, and succeeded in escaping on a vessel loaded with Irish dogs and destined for western Gaul or Britain. So far we are treading on pretty firm ground, for we have the Confession to help us. Of the next period we are not so sure. A little more than twenty years later Patricius returned as a missionary to the land of his captivity. Where did he spend the inter- vening period ? In the one really authentic source of information we find very little help, for the Confes- sion was not written as an autobiography and is often incoherent and provokingly vague. We are told that THE STORY OF PATRICIUS 51 after three days Patricius reached a desert country through which he travelled two months with the com- panions of his voyage, that later he visited his British kinsmen, who urged him to remain among them; that he was divinely called to missionary work ; that some- where he received training for his task, and contrary to the will of his friends, " God directing," went back to the Irish people. Was the land which he reached Gaul or Britain? Did he visit Lerins and study at Auxerre ? Or did he get the rude training which led him to call himself " indoctus " and " rustissimus " at the newly founded school of Candida Casa in Gallo- way? These questions are not after all essential to our understanding of his missionary spirit. Far more interesting is the account which he has left us of his call to service. Possessed with the thought of Ire- land's need, Patricius slept and dreamed that one Vic- toricus stood by his bedside with letters, the first of which Patricius opened and read. Even as he read, he seemed to hear the piteous pleading of the distant Irish folk among whom, he had spent his youth, pray- ing him to return and tell them of his Christ. Not as yet, however, was he willing to obey the heavenly vision, for he felt himself unfitted for the great work and doubtless still remembered with horror the years of his Irish captivity, and only when a second time the voice came to him in the silence of the night with the reproachful words, " Who has laid down his life for my sake ? " did Patricius make the great sur- render. Years passed, however, before the apostle was able to answer the Macedonian cry. When in 431 Pal- ladius was sent as bishop to Ireland, it was not to the unbelieving Celts but to the believing Christians, " ad 52 BONDSMAN AND EMANCIPATOR Scottos in Christum credentes," that he was com- missioned by Pope Celestine. After one short year the mission of Palladius was brought to a close by the death of its leader, and Patricius found the open door for which he had been so long waiting, sailing at last for Ireland, whether with the Roman bishop's sanction or independently we do not know. The principal Irish port for voyagers from Britain at this time was the little town of Inverdea, a few miles north of the present Wicklow. Through this port probably Patricius and his band of helpers passed on their way to their new field of labour. Their first missionary journey took them, tradition states, into the region of Lough Strangford, where they were found by the servants of Dichu, a man of much importance in the district, before whom they were brought in all haste. Their master seems to have recognized Patricius as a man worthy of respect and a hearing. He became the missionary's first con- vert, we are told, and gave land for a church at Sab- hall or Saul, where a wooden barn was the first preaching station. Thence Patricius set out to con- vert his old master, but the stubborn pagan chief re- fused to receive him, according to one story shutting himself up in his house, to which he set fire, perishing in the flames which his own hands had kindled. But if we accept this tradition, the question at once arises how we are to reconcile these accounts with the Con- fession, in which he writes, " I fancied that I heard the voice of the folk who were near the wood of Fochlad, nigh to the western sea. And this was their cry : ' We pray thee, holy youth, to come and again walk amongst us as before/ "^ If the years of 1 J. B. Bury," St. Patrick. " THE STORY OF PATRICIUS 53 his captivity were spent in Connaught, then we cannot be sure of any detail of the journey to which ref- erence has just been made. Yet there were many Christians in the north who needed strengthening in the faith, so that the Ulster mission may well have been undertaken first with a view to afterward broad- ening his work to the pagan folk of the western shores. Very much like the foregoing are all the traditions of the missionary's long life of service. That he broke the power of pagan worship in the island, how- ever, proves how effectively and systematically he must have laboured. It is true that contact with the Empire, the Irish spirit of toleration, and the small company of believers already existing in the island had in a measure prepared the way for such a mission as Patricius was undertaking. Yet even so heathen- ism could not die without a struggle. The secret of the missionary's great success lies, doubtless, in two outstanding qualities of his character, — his simple- hearted devotion to his work, which was to him a labour of love, and the fine tact which made him so thoroughly adapt his methods to the island's peculiar needs, while yet remaining true to his ideals of Chris- tian living. Listen to his own review of his achieve- ments. " The people of Ireland, who formerly had only their idols and pagan ritual, not knowing the Master, have now become His children: the sons of the Scoti and their king's daughters are now become sons of the Master and handmaidens of the Anointed. " Therefore I might even leave them, to go among the Britons, for willingly would I see my own kin- dred and my native land again, or even go so far as 54. BONDSMAN AND EMANCIPATOR Gaul to visit my brothers and see the face of my Master's holy men. But I am bound in the spirit and would be unfaithful if I went. Nor would I wil- lingly risk the fruit of all my work. Yet it is not I who decide, but the Master, who bade me come hither to spend my whole life in serving, as indeed I think I shall ... *' You know and the Master knows how from my youth I have lived among you in aspiration and truth and with a single heart ; that I have declared the truth to those among whom I dwell and still declare it. The Master knows that I have deceived no man in anything, nor ever shall, for His sake and His peo- ple's. Nor shall I ever arouse uncharity in them or in any, lest His name should be evil spoken of." Some time during those first years of his mission Patricius would be summoned to the court of the High King at Tara to explain the nature of the new religion being taught in the island. The king's in- vestigation, however, would hardly be made before the missionaries began preaching in the sovereign's own domain, the central kingdom of Meath, for the great chieftain's overlordship was purely nominal. The meeting of King Loigaire, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, and the then High King of Ireland, with the noble missionary has been most dramatically represented by later writers. In its simplest form the story brings back Patricius and his little band of help- ers to Tara from the north to attend a national fes- tival held in the king's palace at a time coincident with the Christian Easter. In accordance with royal decree no fires are to be lighted throughout the king- dom until the great beacon on Tara reddens with its radiance the night skies. Patricius, following long THE STORY OF PATRICIUS 55 custom, lights the Paschal torch on the Hill of Slane, is summoned before the king, who grants him per- mission to preach to the assembled nobles. Only one convert is made, but the preaching of Patricius re- sults in Loigaire's promising the missionaries a peace- ful continuance of their labours. However much of detail the dramatic instinct of the mediaeval chronicler may have added to the real facts, the audience granted to Patricius must have ended with very much such results as these, while the time and the manner of the interview are certainly not essential. King Loigaire himself never became a Christian. It was in truth no easy step for an Irish chieftain to take, for the gentle art of forgiveness held no place in Ire- land's idea of kingly dignity, and though Niall's son seems to have been a man of peaceful intent whose reign marks a prosperous period in Irish annals, it is nevertheless suggestive that even this sovereign was at his own request buried in full armour and facing the land of his long-time foe, the king of Leinster. Another interesting story is told of the work of the missionaries in Meath. Lomman, a co-labourer of Patricius, was sent to the Ford of the Alder on the river Boyne, where dwelt a son of King Loigaire with his British wife. The visit resulted in the conversion of the entire family. Prince Fedilmid entrusted his young son to Lomman for instruction and later gave his estate over to the missionaries for the establish- ment of a Christian school. A brother of the High King also embraced the faith, and from these two notable conversions we may infer that Patricius would gain a ready hearing for his message among the middle and lower classes. When at last Patricius came to the people whose 66 BONDSMAN AND EMANCIPATOR longing cry had reached him over mountain and sea, whose need at least had brought him to Ireland, we can imagine with what joy the unselfish missionary would gather those first converts of the west and how dear ever after they must have been to his great, pity- ing heart. But there is another picture also which we like to remember of the Connaught mission. On this wild, rocky coast, which still keeps lonely watch and ward over its daughter islands set amid the toss- ing, tumbling waters of the Atlantic at its feet, stands Crochan Aigli or Croagh Patrick, to whose solitary heights Patricius withdrew for a time, to find in fast- ing and prayer new strength for his labours. Per- haps this mountain was the very scene of those years of toil when the British captive had first turned to the God of his fathers. If this were so, what great thoughts must have come to Patricius as he looked back over the way in which he had been led by his Heavenly Father. In these long watches, also, the imaginative Celt would read the word of God in the face of nature. The winds would bring him messages of hope. The storms which raged about the rocky summit would be to him his own struggle with the forces of darkness for the souls of his adopted people, and the sunshine which broke in floods of golden light the final victory of the Christ in Ireland. The star-sown heavens would speak to him of strength and peace and of a love that was all-embracing. So healing of soul would come to Patricius in the mountain solitudes, and when at last he was ready to go down to the old struggle he could see in the slowly-winging seabirds which haunted the lonely promontory the innumerable host of Ireland's Christian warriors, the great souls THE STORY OF PATRICIUS 57 whose victories for truth and progress should help to enlighten the world. For thirty years more, perhaps for a longer period, Patricius laboured in Ireland, principally in the north- ern half of the island, baptizing thousands of con- verts, founding many churches, and establishing schools for the training of a native clergy. All this so successfully accomplished proves that Patricius pos- sessed not only those qualities of gentleness and hu- mility for which his Confession shows him to have been so remarkable, but an indomitable will power and a splendid resourcefulness which enabled him to cope successfully with the many problems of his mis- sion. That he was able to achieve so much was in the thought of Patricius entirely " the gift of God," and one of the greatest miracles of any time. To us, too, it is no less a marvel. Yet its secret is not far to seek. We have it in the words of that quaint Scottish hymn, perhaps of Patricius' own composi- tion, at least expressive of the spirit in which his whole work was done, wherein is recognized the preacher's utter dependence upon his divine Master for whose glory he is labouring: " Christ in the sight Of each eye that shall seek me, Christ in each ear that shall hear, Christ in each mouth that shall speak me, Christ not the less, In each heart I address." THE APOSTLES OF GALLOWAY AND STRATHCLYDE NiNIAN AND KeNTIGERN " For all thy saints, who from their labours rest, Who thee by faith before the world confest, Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. " Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Light ; Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight; Thou, in the darkness drear, their Light of light." — William Walsham How. IN June, 1910, there was held in the city of Edin- burgh, Scotland, a unique religious convention. Protestant bodies of every land interested in the question of world evangelization sent delegates to this great gathering. From the foreign fields came men and women whose lives had been spent in the practical study of the problems which were discussed at its meetings. Commissions appointed long before the date set for convening brought in exhaustive re- ports upon many phases of missionary activity, — Christian education, unity and co-operation on the field, the church and native governments, and kindred subjects. In discussing these questions of common interest, creed and nationality were forgotten and men of the old kirk and the free kirk, high church- man and nonconformist. Englishman and American, 56 NINIAN AND KENTIGERN 59 Scandinavian and German, met daily to pray for the speedy conversion of the awakening nations of the non-Christian world. Such was the first World's Missionary Conference, one of the epoch-making events in the history of the Christian Church. Yet important as was the Conference in itself, one can not help thinking how impressive a proof of the value of Christian missions might have been given the delegates, had it been possible for the veil of the ages to lift for a moment revealing the Scotland of the early years, the Scotland of a Celtic paganism, where a few solitary workers and scattered Christian communities were endeavouring to overthrow the forces of heathenism with the Gospel of peace and goodwill. All that during these fifteen centuries God has wrought in the fair realm of Scotland can He not repeat in China and India and the islands of the sea? Yesterday "an axe age, a spear age, a wolf age, a war age, a confusion of races, and a twilight of time." To-day thousands of missionary labourers met for conference in this same land, which has be- come known the world over for the zeal of its faith and works. Yesterday in all Europe a mere hand- ful of Christians and an almost untried faith. To- day millions of followers of the Christ and the rich fruitage of nearly two thousand years of martyrdom and growth and conquest. Surely when we realize what Christ has done for England and Scotland and America we cannot doubt His power to revolutionize the non-Christian world of to-day, if zve are faithful to our trust. The year 410 saw Britain left defenceless by the withdrawal of the Roman armies. To the north, however, this event would be of little moment since 60 THE APOSTLES OF GALLOWAY the Roman eagles had never advanced far beyond the Clyde and the Forth. The mountainous country extending northward from the Grampians and known as Pictland or Caledonia was the home of a fierce race, perhaps pure Gaelic, perhaps Iberian with a strain of Gaelic blood. We know little of their cus- toms, their language, or their religion save that they w-ere still pagans. South of the wall of Antoninus, which connected the estuaries of the Forth and Clyde, Roman civilization had left some impress, and there Christianity had found a foothold. The times, how- ever, w-ere rendered far too troublous by almost con- stant warfare with the Picts of the north and the Scots of Ireland, and by the ravages of Saxon pirates, to permit the development of a strong and progressive church. Yet even in the darkness of the falling night here and there a solitary lamp still shone forth with a steady radiance to guide the faltering steps of the persecuted Brythons.^ Sometimes, too, the blessed light would send its life-giving rays far out into the heathen communities, bringing them gradually to a renunciation of their old gods. One of these centres of light was set amid the wilds of Galloway, in south- western Scotland. The founder of this Christian school was a Briton named Ninian, who had studied in Rome and had returned to instruct his countrymen in the faith. Received by the Christians of Galloway W'ith great rejoicing, he built on the southern shore of Wigtow^n Bay a beautiful new church of white stone, from its appearance known as Candida Casa or White House. If we may believe tradition, the school which he founded here w^as w'ell and favourably known even so far as Ireland. To-day all traces of 1 Brython is, of course, only another form of Briton. NINIAN AND KEXTIGERN 61 this foundation have disappeared. Only in a cave in the face of a steep cHff near Whithorn the traveller may still see quaint Celtic crosses, which it is believed the saint carved upon the rock walls when he with- drew here for meditation and prayer/ Ninian, we are told, was a man much given to Bible study, and it would be interesting to know whether the young Pa- tricius ever found his w^ay to Candida Casa to gain from his fellow countryman that love for the word of God which is so conspicuous in the Confession of Ireland's great apostle. When all is said, it is a very shadowy figure that we see through the mists of the years, and very shadowy also is our picture of the people for whom he la- boured. His more immediate parish or diocese of Galloway seems to have included both Brython and Pict, of whom the latter may have been still wor- shippers of heathen deities when Ninian came among them. Even here his work would necessitate a life of great hardship and self-denial, for the country was at that time still covered with dense forests and in parts was wild and mountainous. Nevertheless the zeal of this man of God seems only to have increased with danger and difficulty, and so when the nearer places had been firmly established in the Christian doctrines he began reaching out to the Pictish tribes which dwelt by the wall of Antoninus and were known in distinction to their northern neighbours, the Caledonians, as the southern Picts. Writing of the coming of Columba to lona, Bede says, " The south- ern Picts who dwelt on this side of those mountains had long before, as is reported, forsaken the errors of idolatry and embraced the truth, through the iLang, "History of Scotland." 62 THE APOSTLES OF GALLOWAY preaching of Ninias, a most reverend bishop, and a holy man of the British nation, who had been regu- larly instructed at Rome in the faith and mysteries of the truth." We would like very much to be able to follow the missionary in his preaching tours among this half -barbarous people, who were thus won by the spiritual forces of an Empire which had never suc- ceeded in gaining material dominion over them; but we know little beyond the statement of the Northum- brian historian. Even the date and place of his death are unknown, though an early tradition takes him to Ireland, where he is said to have founded a monastery at Cluainconer. A century and a half had passed, a period of storm and stress in Scotland, where tribe warred against tribe, and the dread invader from the forests and morasses across the German Ocean pressed in larger and larger numbers into the land of their future do- minion. By the middle of the sixth century the country was divided as follows. North of the Gram- pians the Picts were consolidated into a single king- dom with a capital near Inverness. The western shore, including the present Argyle and Bute with the adjacent islands, was held by Dalriadic Scots, who after years of predatory invasion had left their Irish homes at the beginning of the sixth century for permanent settlement in Scotland. Reaching south- ward from Dumbarton to the Derwent was the king- dom of the Strathclyde or Cumbrian Brythons, with Galloway largely Pictish. The Anglian kingdom of Bernicia extended northward as far as Haddington, and was soon to include Edinburgh. Of these four kingdoms, Dalriada was nominally Christian, Strath- NINIAN AND KENTIGERN 63 clyde was partly pagan and partly Christian, the re- maining two were openly heathen. The second of Scotland's great missionaries, Kentigern or Mungo, seems to have been largely responsible for the final overthrow of paganism in Strathclyde, as Columba accomplished the conversion of the northern Picts and Aidan that of the invading English. When Kentigern first comes upon the stage of authentic history, we find him establishing a monas- tery at Glasghu or Glasgow, of which city he became the patron saint. A monk of Furness who wrote an eleventh century life of the missionary says that the king of the Cumbrian Brythons had convened a coun- cil of the church of Ninian's planting and that the Conference called Kentigern to the task of re-con- verting Strathclyde. He accepted the call and was ordained by a bishop from Ireland, but his work was destined to interruption. After the death of the reigning prince there arose a king who knew not the religion of Kentigern, and very soon the hostility of the royal pagan became so bitter that the missionary was forced to leave his unfinished task and flee to his countrymen in Wales, among whom he remained many years, tradition says founding a school for Christian workers on the Welsh Clyde, where to-day stands St. Asaph's. When in 573 Rhydderch Hael or Roderick the Bountiful succeeded to the British throne, Kentigern was recalled to Glasgow and spent the remainder of his life teaching the gospel of the Christ to the rude Brythons among whom he had first laboured. Per- haps on the very site of the present cathedral which is named in his honour, Kentigern built a little wooden church, around which there grew up a Christian com- "'?•►■ 64. THE APOSTLES OF GALLOWAY munity, the beginning of the future metropolis. Here Kentigern preached the word of God to throngs of Christians and pagans and celebrated the sacred rites. Like Ninian, the Apostle of Strathclyde was not content with teaching his own people, but made long missionary journeys to the Picts of Galloway and the Caledonians beyond the wall. Jocelyn tells us that he even reached the Orkneys and Iceland, but it is hardly probable that he ever went farther than Aberdeenshire. After thirty years of untiring la- bour, on the thirteenth of January, 603, the noble missionary passed to his reward, and was buried in the church which he had built at Glasgow. VI THE DOVE OF THE CHURCHES COLUMBA AND THE MISSIONARY INSTITUTE OF lONA "How rapid the speed of my coracle ; And its stern turned upon Derry ; I grieve at my errand o'er the noble sea, Travelling to Alba of the ravens. • • • • • My vision o'er the brine I stretch From the ample oaken planks ; Large is the tear of my soft grey eye, When I look back upon Erin." — Columba, " The Song of Farewell." " The best advice in the presence of God To me has been vouchesafed." — ' ' Columkille fecit. " CARLYLE once compared the great German reformer, Martin Luther, to an Alpine moun- tain, " unsubduable granite, piercing far and wide into the Heavens; yet in the clefts of it foun- tains, green, beautiful valleys with flowers!" There is a figure like to that in Europe's early missionary annals, a mountain peak looming grand and beautiful above the rugged foothills, beaten by winter tempest, bathed in summer sunlight, but alike unmoved, for- ever inspired and inspiring. In Columba or Colum- kille, the Irish prince and apostle of northern Scot- land, the founder of lona, that " lamp of Christ " 69 66 THE DOVE OF THE CHURCHES whose radiance cleft the darkness of mediaeval Europe and still shines down the ages ; the friend and political adviser of kings; the daring explorer, whose frail skiff penetrated unsailed seas, carried thither by love for the Christ; in Columba, the seer and prophet, a mystic inspired by visions of divine beauty, one is given to see also the flowers of a rare tenderness and love like the Master's own. Columba of the Churches, one of the greatest names in that long list of Celtic missionaries whose work was so large a part of the evangelization of Europe, is a " Spiritual Hero and Prophet," one " for whom these centuries and many that are to come yet, will be thankful to Heaven." The sixth century marked the beginning of what has been termed Ireland's Golden Age.^ Before the new century had dawned the pagan temples were in ruins and the pagan faith was dead, except as it lived on in the folklore of an imaginative people. On hill- slope and in secluded vale quaint round churches and little beehive-shaped cells revealed the place where the Gospel of God's grace was proclaimed or the bless- ings of Christian education were being offered to hungering souls. Toward the Isle of Saints in the years before the Viking overran the land, kings and scholars in all storm-tossed Europe turned as to the Pole Star of their hopes.^ For Ireland, set in the far west where its remoteness saved it from the pagan hordes threatening to engulf the Christianity of the 1 Such terms as Golden Age, we must remember, are always used in a comparative sense. Christian Ireland followed the age of pagan sacrifice, with its horrors. 2 This period of peace and prosperity lasted until the ninth century, the f.rst incursion of the Northmen occurring in 795. COLUMBA AND MISSIONARY INSTITUTE 67 Continent, offered in its many schools a haven of peace for the scholar and the saint, while it was from these same monastic centres that missionary monks, moved by a great compassion for benighted souls and an ardent zeal for the spread of the Kingdom, jour- neyed on foot over Europe, bringing many a still heathen folk into the fold of the Christ. Sixty years after the death of Patricius, before the period just mentioned had fairly begun, and while the new faith was still striving for mastery with the old, there was born at Gartan in that part of Ulster which now forms the county of Donegal, a great- grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages, who in turn was to carry the good news of salvation to the very land from which, we have reason to believe, the Ulster chief had brought the Apostle of Ireland so many years before. This was Columba, the founder of the most important missionary institute of the early church. The lad's mother was the daughter of a Leinster chief and must have been a most devout woman, gifted with great spiritual insight for the time in which she lived. Even the legends which at a very early period gathered about her name and that of her princely son are of a strange, mystic beauty that gives us at least a hint of her real character. Such is the dream in which the greatness of Columba was revealed to the future mother. It is told that an angel came to Aithne, bearing in his hands a mantle of so delicate a texture that it seemed woven of flowers and rain- bows. When he had shown the princess this wonder- ful garment, he flung it upward into the clear ether, where it floated far and wide over mountain peak and hidden vale until it covered the whole of the British Isles, a symbol of the manner in which the 68 THE DOVE OF THE CHURCHES good saint's labours should shadow protectingly this far-off corner of Europe. The influences which surrounded the little lad must have been of a conflicting nature. In his father's banqueting-hall he saw the proudest chieftains of a proud and warlike people. Hero tales from the past were chanted by the bards in the long winter evenings, and the pride of ancestry and the thought of the honour and power his own princely hand might win when he had grown to manhood would appeal in- tensely to the descendant of Ireland's first overlord. On the other hand, the teaching of his gentle mother would be strengthened by Columba's own love of beauty, whether material or spiritual, and by the new conceptions of life that were daily becoming stronger through the monastic schools at this time springing up all over the land and attracting many of noble birth to a life of intellectual and religious pursuits. Still another fact of Columba's childhood influenced him in the direction of a religious life. It had become a custom to send boys of royal parentage to the priest- hood for training, and Adamnan mentions one Cruithnechan as Columba's foster-father. At some time the young prince studied poet-lore under a bard of his father's court, a fact which perhaps accounts for his later spirited defence of that ancient order. The monastery of Clonard, where Columba pur- sued his education under Finnian the Wise, one of the foremost teachers of the day, was situated on the lofty shore of the river Boyne, and consisted of a central chapel and library of unmortared stone, with domed roof, and the separate cells of the students, which were built in a circle about it. Here, looking out upon a landscape of great natural beauty, the lad pur- COLUMBA AND MISSIONARY INSTITUTE 69 sued his study of the sacred Scriptures, and perhaps began his work as a transcriber, working into the in- tricate patterns of geometric line and fanciful scroll with which he illuminated his manuscripts a grace that the soft evening light upon the peaceful vale of the Boyne or the delicate beauty of the sunrise had breathed into his responsive soul. During the next years his missionary spirit was made apparent in the founding of Christian schools, the most important of which were the monasteries of Derry and Durrow. About the year 563, while Justinian was reigning over old and new Rome and the shadow of heathen ignorance still rested upon the . forests of Germany, while France was seething in a turmoil of barbaric warfare and in the nearer places ^lla was beginning the long conquest of Bernicia, while Kentigern was still an exile in Wales and the light of Christianity was burning low in darkened Scotland, Columba with twelve companions left Ireland for the highlands of western Alba, where he had resolved to spend his life in winning the northern Picts to the faith of his Master. Two reasons have been assigned by the old writers for this sudden decision to undertake foreign mis- sionary service, neither of them quite what a study of the after life of this great missionary would lead us to expect. One story shows Columba sheltering a murderer from the king's court, and on the right of sanctuary being violated, gathering his kinsfolk, the Clan Neill, to a battle at Culdreivne, where the army of the king's son was completely routed by the men of the north. Columba, becoming remorseful when his hasty temper had had time to cool, made a vow to win as many converts from heathenism as there 70 THE DOVE OF THE CHURCHES had been warriors slain in the unjust battle for which he was responsible. In the second story it was Co- lumba's love for rare books which sent him into exile. The Abbot of Moville possessed a valuable Psalter which the artist-monk greatly desired to copy. Upon Finnian's refusal Columba obtained the transcription by stealth, and the question was referred to Tara's king, whose decision led to battle between the clans to which Finnian and the future Apostle of the Picts belonged. It may well be that one of these stories is true. Nevertheless we shall make a grievous mistake if we judge the Celt of the sixth century by to-day's stand- ards. Columba was, we know; a proud scion of Ire- land's ruling family, dowered with all the wilfulness of an imperious race, a Gael of the Gaels in the quick play of emotion, which made him at once tender as a child and stern as a Hebrew prophet. Such a char- acter chastened by sorrow would inevitably accom- plish great things for the Master. In after years Columba returned to Ireland more than once for the superintendence of his earlier missionary work, and was everywhere honoured and influential, while to the missionary institute which he founded on lona and moulded into the image of his own soul by far the greater part of England and Scotland owes its con- version. In a frail boat fashioned of skins and withes from the tough osier, in size more fit for navigation in some sheltered fiord than for breasting the stormy surges by which Alba's coast has been torn into a thousand rocky islands and promontories, Columba with his few helpers sailed from Ireland on his great mission to the northern Picts. To this home-loving Gael COLUMBA AND MISSIONARY INSTITUTE 71 knowing so little of what lay beyond the grey, dreary expanse of waters, with little hope of ever again see- ing the faithful flock at Derry from whom he had just parted, there must have come sore pangs of bit- ter longing as he watched the familiar shores fall farther and farther back on the horizon line. Never- theless, having once set his hand to the plow, there was to be no turning back for Columba. When from Colonsay's highest peak, he scanned the distant bil- lows for trace of the homeland, and still beheld the low bank of misty blue that was Ireland, the intrepid missionary sailed again resolutely northward to the island of lona, upon which his memory was to rest in all after ages like a benediction. The little bay where Columba and his followers first landed in lona is still known as Port-na-Churraich, or the Haven of the Coracle, and bits of emerald- coloured rock ^ strewn along its shore the inhabitants superstitiously regard as pieces of the huge boulder upon which the missionaries stepped from their rude boat. Northward beyond the bay the island stretches for nearly three miles, a table-land of barren gneiss rock, broken by dips of fertile valley, and in the northeast rising to the steep hill of Dun-i. From the kelp-covered rocks of its western shore to the white sand dunes that face the narrow strait dividing the island from Mull, the cry of the curlew is still borne on the winds and about the ruins of long past years the doves croon as gently as when Columkille, the Dove of the Churches, gave them his daily blessing. As grand, too, in Columba's time must have been the ' Jade. Writing concerning a visit to lona in 1810, Sir Walter Scott mentions carrying away one of these pebbles, and having it set in a brooch, which he presented to Miss Joanna Baillie. 72 THE DOVE OF THE CHURCHES view eastward, where the artist-missionary would look out " across the turbulent water of lona Sound, dotted with black rocks and little islets around which the surf breaks in broad white fringes. Afar off one may descry the lofty dome of Ben More towering into the clouds from the Isle of Mull, and in the op- posite direction the ' Coolin Hills of Skye ' rise ethereal among the ever-present clouds, which drift majestically by, now veiling, now revealing, their purple, craggy peaks." ^ Wearied by their efforts to escape the eddies and whirlpools which surround the island, the mission- aries drew their coracle far up on the sand, and as soon as they had satisfied themselves that all vestige of the homeland was at last gone from the horizon, buried their boat in the sand of the shore and set about build- ing rude homes and a little church in which to wor- ship God on the spot where, of old, Druid priests had performed their mystic rites. Almost their first care was to begin the cultivation of the few acres of til- lable land which the island afforded, for beside the fact that they were unwilling to be dependent upon the people for whom they laboured, they wished to show this turbulent folk the beauty of ordered and industrious living, and not less impressive than Co- lumba's eloquent pleadings must have been the prac- tical sermons which this little company of Christian labourers preached so silently as they sowed and reaped and filled their leisure moments with con- tented study. Fortified by its very isolation, this little settlement of Celtic Christians soon became a centre of learning and missionary interest for all the northwestern por- 1 Butler, " Scotland's Ruined Abbeys." COLUMBA AND MISSIONARY INSTITUTE 73 tion of Europe. The number of monks increased to a hundred and fifty. The buildings, still of the sim- plest sort, were surrounded by a wall of earth, though by far its greatest defence was its simple, practical faith. Again and again the fierce warrior plunder- ing these coasts spared lona because of the self- denying lives which had made the bleak, lonely island hallowed ground. For centuries after Columba's day men came from far to the great school which he had founded, and kings who longed for rest after " life's fitful fever " were brought hither for peaceful burial. But Columba had not come to Scotland simply to found a Christian college. lona was to be above all a missionary centre, from which trained workers should go out to convert not only the Picts and the Saxons of Britain, but large parts of the Continent as well. Hardly were the first rude cells erected and the land made to yield a sustenance when Columba, perhaps accompanied by one or two monks, set out on the difficult journey of one hundred and fifty miles to the capital of the Caledonian kingdom. Doubtless Columba had already begun preaching the word of God to his countrymen, the Scots of the neighbouring coast, but this was his first extensive missionary tour. By dangerous sea-channels and steep mountain passes the undaunted missionary traversed Appin, Lochaber, and Glengarry, and, skirting the north shore of Lake Ness, arrived before the stockaded stronghold where was the royal residence of Brude, King of the Picts. Adamnan says that the pagan monarch at first refused to admit them, whereupon these determined men be- gan chanting the vesper Psalms and the voice of Co- lumba became like the roar of thunder in the moun- tains. Still the king, warned by his Druids, hesitated 74 THE DOVE OF THE CHURCHES until the good monk, by tracing the sign of the cross upon the gates, caused them to fall back, and thus won the prince to his cause. We of to-day read into this na'ive story a deeper meaning than Adamnan probably intended to convey. The gates of this Highland kingdom opening before the simple preach- ing of the Cross to admit the Christ through His faithful servant, is a true picture of Columba's v^on- derful achievements in northern Alba. The miraculous is all too evident in the narratives that have come down to us of the saint's life and work. But, though the great Celt was in all proba- bility a mystic, given to visions and living in closer touch with the unseen world than the practical Anglo- Saxon of our time can appreciate, yet, as some one has well said, Columba's own Confession, if we pos- sessed such a document, would doubtless be as force- ful a narrative of missionary effort and missionary accomplishment as the account left us by the simple- hearted Patricius. We wish indeed that the Apostle of Caledonia had cared to write the story of his great work. What a record we should have then of that far-off time! He would tell us how for more than three and thirty years the Picts and Scots rejoiced in his personal ministrations; how as one of princely race he gained royal converts among the tribes which he visited; how he won clachan after clachan to the Christ and planted industrial schools in every part of northern Scotland ; how he met and overcame the hos- tility of the Druids; how he trained younger men from the new converts to go back and tell the story of Jesus Christ to their own people; finally, how he developed a system of organization by which the work throughout Scotland was directed from lona ANCIENT CELTIC CROSS, lONA COLUMBA AND MISSIONARY INSTITUTE 75 and went on unhindered when the founder was gone. Columba was a man in middle life when he went to Scotland. Tall, of commanding presence and un- usual eloquence, he must have been singularly fitted for his missionary labours. True Celt that he was, he loved meditation and solitude, and often withdrew to a neighbouring island, " pleading earnestly for God's blessing on the great work in which he was engaged." Oppression and injustice roused his in- dignation as naught else could, and many a serf owed his freedom to Columba. Not less great was his tenderness toward the animal world, and in his sympathy with his speechless brothers of lona, bird and animal, he almost rivalled the Assisan saint. The last hours of the apostle were full of dignity and of thought for the comfort of others. Once more he climbed the little hill behind the monastery and, looking down upon the child of his care, gave it his blessing. When he had visited the harvesters and had given thanks for the rich ingathering of the early crops, he returned to his study and tried to work upon a transcription of the Psalter, but his hand was weary and at the words, " They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing," he laid down the pen, saying, " What follows let Baithene write." He died that night peacefully before the altar whither he had gone for the midnight service, and a great and good man had entered into rest. There remains in Zona no trace of Columba's monastery. A church^ and other monastic ruins now standing on the eastern slopes date from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and only a few Celtic crosses and the graves of the great who were brought hither ^The cathedral church of St. Mary, now restored. 76 THE DOVE OF THE CHURCHES for burial remain of that grander and earlier age. Even these do not reach to Columba's time. But back through the centuries the mind wanders at will and sees again the old lona which lighted pagan Scot- land, and longs to paint the picture of that wonderful time. Sometime perhaps the true story of the island will be written. " It will tell what this ' little lamp of Christ ' was to pagan Europe; what incense of tes- timony it flung upon the winds; what saints and heroes went out of it; how the dust of kings and princes was brought there to mingle with its sands; how the noble and the ignoble came to it across long seas and perilous countries. It will tell, too, how the Danes despoiled the Isles of the West, and left words and imageries so alive to-day that the listener in the mind may hear the cries of the viking above the voice of the Gael and the more ancient tongue of the Pict. It will tell, too, how the nettle came to shed its snow above kings' heads, and the thistle to wave where bishops' mitres stood; how a simple people out of the hills and moors, remembering ancient wisdom or blindly cherishing forgotten symbols, sought here the Fount of Youth; and how slowly a long sleep fell upon the island, and only the grasses shaken in the wind, and the wind itself, and the broken shadows of dreams in the minds of the old held the secret of lona." ^ The " secret of lona," the wonderful secret of the Isle of Saints, is not buried in the graves of Columba ^ 1 Fiona Macleod, "lona." 2 Some years after his death Columba's body was carried to Ireland, where it rested with those of Patrick and Bridget in the church at Down until the building was burned by Lord Gray in the reign of Henry VIII. COLUMBA AND MISSIONARY INSTITUTE 77 and his followers, nor whispered by the sobbing sea- waves to the lonely strand of an island among the Hebrides. It was too mighty a secret for lona to hold. For these few barren acres became hallowed ground only because there once more in far-off ages the spirit of the Christ was made a real and vital fact by men who lived not unto themselves, but unto those for whom the Master died. To-day lona's secret may be read in the cities of the Orient and the humble villages of the Dark Continent or on the islands of the sea. Wherever His servants serve Him by minis- tering to needy and suffering souls, there is " the secret of lona." VII A VOICE FROM THE DESERT ' Severinus, Hermit-Missionary Lead me, yea, lead me deeper into life — This suffering, human life wherein Thou liv'st And breath'st still, and hold'st Thy way divine, 'Tis here, O pitying Christ, where Thee I seek, Here where the strife is fiercest : where the sun Beats down upon the highway thronged with men, And in the raging mart. Oh! deeper lead My soul into the living world of souls "Where Thou dost move." — Richard Watson Gilder. T I HE tawny sands of the desert shone in the slant rays of the setting sun like a sea of molten gold. Save for a group of rock-hewn tombs and a distant island of palms, the burnished billows stretched away unbroken to the meeting-place of sand and sky, while the dull, weary heat of the tropic summer seemed hardly more oppressive than the deep silence of the centuries resting upon the ancient sepulchres and the lifeless reaches of the desert. In the shadow of one of these tombs a man apparently in middle life was pacing slowly to and fro. He wore a linen tunic, over which was thrown a cloak of white goatskin, and in his hand held a parchment roll, from which his troubled gaze often wandered out ^See Appendix I, Note 2. 78 SEVERINUS, HERMIT-MISSIONARY 79 over the expanse of the desert as if seeking help from some unknown source. After the fashion of one whose soHtary life keeps him apart from his fellows, now and again the anchorite fell into broken musings which revealed the struggle going on in the soul of the erstwhile peaceful hermit. " Came I not hither to escape the temptations of the world and to find in fasting and prayer a deeper vision of the God whom they scorn in the market- place and the palace? And was not yonder desert teaching me the way to peace? Why have I so soon lost the vision? . . . Can a tale of wretched, bar- barous peoples who care little for the mysteries of life send from me the calm that I have been years in gaining? . . . Have I struggled in vain these many years and in vain subdued every longing for com- panionship and the delights of the world? Must I fight the battle for peace over again? Was I not right in withdrawing to a life of solitude here, for even so have the saints done since Anthony's time, and our Lord Himself led His disciples to a lonely mountain top to be transfigured before them? . . . No, no, the man who sought me in the desert for my blessing and brought me this tale of suffering shall only make my strength the greater by showing me the blessings Jehovah gives to those who seek Him apart from the strife of the world." Once more the hermit raised his parchment roll and while swiftly the sun sank below the horizon and the cool of the evening crept over the burning sands he read again the gospel story of which he had been thinking. The darkness settled like a transparent cloud over the plain, and the myriad shining lights of the clear heavens shone down upon him in peace, but 80 A VOICE FROM THE DESERT the anchorite was no longer alone, for One walked with him in the darkness and recalled to his remem- brance the many deeds of mercy and of love which for all time rest like a benediction upon the villages and highways of Palestine. From the mountain heights to the valley of service, thus had the Master led His disciples, and out into all the world they had gone, telling over and over again the story of His life, and everywhere relieving pain and distress. " Have I not taught thee of Myself that thou mightest teach others ? " The voice was as clear and the presence as real to Severinus as if he had walked in Galilee with the Master. And the humbled disciple made answer, " Whithersoever Thou commandest I will go." • •••••••• Attila, called for the utter desolation that he left wherever his armies marched " the Scourge of God "; Attila, leader of the most savage warriors that ever overran Europe; Attila the Hun was dead, and al- ready his empire was being separated into war- ring factions. Throughout Gaul and Germany men breathed more freely when the rumour of his death became accepted fact, but the cities that lay in black- ened ruins and the fields and villages but now so prosperous which his terrible hordes had laid waste, still remained to tell the awful story of disaster. The provinces of the Roman frontier had suffered too much to recover immediately, especially Rhsetia and Noricum. When the great Hun had returned east- ward after the battle of Chalons, Goths and Germans roamed and fought and pillaged in these border lands and safety and peace were nowhere to be enjoyed. Small wonder, then, that, like men of a later day, SEVERINUS, HERMIT-MISSIONARY 81 the newly converted inhabitants of these provinces came to beheve that Christ and His saints were asleep and, hastening to the churches to pray, ended by offering sacrifices to their old gods. In the midst of this desolation one man's life stands out in striking contrast to the wretched beings about him. By the gates of Faviana^ he had built him a humble cell, and there day after day he preached a healing gospel, in which hope and duty were strangely mingled. To no one did he reveal his race or early home or whence he had come to minister to them in their distress. Yet all men believed in him for the beautiful help- fulness of his spirit and the uprightness of his life, and his fame soon spread to distant places. Even the enemies of the people among whom he dwelt were awed by his presence and feared his righteous wrath. Called by the besieged cities of Noricum to their aid, he hastened to them on foot, and proved himself their friend by his words of encouragement and by the practical relief which he brought. In heat and cold, in storm and sunshine, he moved among them, bring- ing order out of chaos in their cities, urging the ran- som of captives, relieving distress by systematic alms- giving, and above all revealing in his life and in his teaching a faith which all were forced to acknowledge their fathers' gods could never have inspired. When the enemy threatened their cities, they besought him to come that his holy presence might restrain the fury of the foe and save them from at least the worst hor- rors of war. Once when the enemy had fallen upon the fields of grain and plundered all the surrounding territory and taken away the inhabitants of the nearby villages, 1 Vienna. 82 A VOICE FROM THE DESERT Severinus approached the governor of the garrison, begging him to pursue and punish these marauders. The Roman official returned victorious and at once sent his prisoners to the missionary. No sooner were these wretched men brought into the saint's presence than he commanded his attendants to break off their fetters and then with words of warning to sin no more against the followers of his Lord bade the cap- tives return to their own people. And the stern bar- barian leader whom many battles had not terrified, who never had himself shown pity, stood before the Apostle of Noricum trembling and afraid at this un- merited mercy. For many years the unknown missionary laboured thus among a suffering people. When at last he knew the day of his departure was at hand and that he would soon meet his Lord, we wonder if a vision of that earlier time came to him, as we are told it so often had come, when in the midst of his toil the longing for meditation and silence overburdened him. Did Severinus the missionary, who had spent the years in service for his fellowmen, look back to that night when alone with his Christ in the desert he had promised to give up his hermit's life and go out to an unknown land and people to minister to his Lord's needy children? Can we doubt that he had learned at last the lesson that the vision of God is most surely kept when it leads us to suffering humanity ? " Inas- much as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." VIII CELTIC MISSIONARIES ON THE CONTINENT COLUMBANUS AND GaLLUS "The path of duty is the way to glory ; He, that ever following her commands, On with toil of heart and knees and hands, Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won His path upward, and prevail'd, Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled Are close upon the shining table-lands To which our God himself is moon and sun." — Tennyson. ON a day in the year of our Lord 590/ when Childebert II. sat upon the throne of Aus- trasia and Guntram ruled over Burgundy, there might have been seen travelling slowly and patiently along the rocky defiles of the Vosges Mountains in eastern France a line of black-robed figures, carrying bulky wallets and cases of roughly finished leather and in their hands small manu- script books, from which they scarce raised their eyes to the dark stretches of hardy fir and pine that rose above them. Their leader, a stern and spare but muscular figure, bore in his hand a staff of intri- cate workmanship, the delicate tracery of its curved head forming a striking contrast to the severely plain 1 Other dates are 585 and 574. 83 84 CELTIC MISSIONARIES habits of the little company. Yet could we have looked within the cases which these travellers bore suspended from their shoulders we should doubtless have found more than one beautifully illuminated volume which in the fineness of its workmanship would have matched their bishop's crozier. For as you have already guessed these men were Celtic mis- sionaries, who had journeyed hither from Ireland, under the leadership of Columbanus, to revive the faith in Gaul and to preach the message of life to the wild Suevians of the border. Their destination was the ruined fortress of Anne- gratis, which the Romans had erected at this point to keep back the invading northern tribes, but which in common with the other Roman fortresses of the Em- pire's frontier had long ago fallen before the relent- less onmarch of pagan multitudes. Its massive masonry loomed up before the Irish missionaries at last, the soft light of the setting sun resting over broken archway and fallen tower with a mellow radiance that transformed the sombre fortifications into masses of tender colour. Yet as the monks closed their Psalters and looked out upon the sur- roundings of their future home, no human habitation broke the wilderness of bleak hills and rocky ravines, and all too well they knew that the men who roamed this desolate region were a wild, untamable folk, who must be lovingly and patiently served before they would forget their hostile suspicion of foreign intruders and listen willingly to the new, strange mes- sage. Too fiery a zeal, however, burned in the hearts of these brave Celts, whose own people had not long before worshipped strange gods, for them to falter over the task they had gladly undertaken. COLUMBANUS AND GALLUS 85 And so before the evening shadows fell, from the old ruins where Roman legions had invoked the wargod Mars rose the solemn vesper chants of a Christian service, and hearts that longed for the Heavenly Country registered secret vows to wait their Lord's coming in the service of His needy and untaught chil- dren. Still across the chasm of the centuries they stretch hands of fellowship to the missionary labourer of to-day, and differences of time and faith vanish before the might of that one great common purpose, the bringing of life more abundant to Christ's stray- ing sheep. In a very practical way these missionaries set about the winning of their warrior neighbours, and soon the waste land, cleared and carefully cultivated, began to show the tender green of the early wheat and thatched buildings, — chapel and round tower, the common refectory and the separate cells of the breth- ren, — preached a silent sermon of peaceful and indus- trious living much needed by a folk who knew not as yet the better way of settled homes and honest toil. For soon the pagan Suevians came, and came in ever increasing numbers, to watch these strange people, who were so different from the Franks of the neigh- bouring kingdoms. Never had they had friends like these, men who spoke little but gave themselves to comforting their sorrowing ones and healing their sick, who took the fear of death from those going out into the shadows and rebuked sin wherever they found it. Nor was it to the followers of Odin only that the little station became a beacon light set in the darkness. Many of the Frankish chieftains who had been little affected by a Christianity adopted solely for state reasons, were attracted by the unselfish serv- 86 CELTIC MISSIONARIES ice of the missionaries. Before long the work de- volving upon the labourers became so great that a new mission station seemed necessary, and Colum- banus founded Luxeuil, while still later he built a third monastic school at Fontaines. In all these a strict discipline was maintained which, hard as it may- seem to-day, doubtless served to keep the luxury and low ideals of the Prankish clergy from penetrating these healthful retreats. The man who formulated this code of rules, who had dared the terrors of the wilderness, and later would brave the anger of the cruel Brunehaut for conscience' sake, is a character worthy of our atten- tion. Born in eastern Ireland in the middle of the sixth century, of noble ancestry, educated at Cluain- innis and Banchor, at the age of thirty he had left his native island to preach the gospel on the Conti- nent. With twelve companions he landed on the shores of France and travelled by way of the Bur- gundian court to the lonely valleys of the Vosges. First among his brethren in all difficult labours, he united the natural asceticism of the early Irish church with a practical and yet extremely spiritual faith. In the years following his arrival at Annegratis the contrast of his life and teaching with the corrupt Gallic church became so constant a rebuke to the lat- ter and aroused such enmity that Columbanus was forced to defend his position. To the bishops who had attacked his differing ecclesiastical customs he wrote with an almost modern spirit of broad fellowship. " I came as a stranger among you in behalf of our common Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. In His name I beseech you, let me live in peace and quiet. . . . Regard us not as strangers, for we are mem- COLUMBANUS AND GALLUS 87 bers together of one Body, whether we be Gauls, or Britons, or Iberians, or to whatever nation we be- long. Therefore let us all rejoice in knowledge of the faith, and let us strive earnestly to attain to- gether unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; in communion with Him let us learn to love one another, that with Him we may together reign forevermore." Meanwhile King Guntram had died and Thierry n., grandson of Sigebert and Brunehaut, ruled in Burgundy. Nowhere was vice more openly allowed than at the Burgundian court, but King Thierry seems at first to have been touched by the pure gospel of Columbanus' preaching and often came to visit him at his monastery of Luxeuil. Brunehaut and the profligate nobles were naturally ill content with the influence that the Irish missionary was exerting over the king, and Thierry himself seems to have been much lacking in strength of purpose. In the end the queen and her advisers won and Thierry appeared at Luxeuil with a decree of banishment for Columbanus. The missionary refused to comply with the king's mandate and was forcibly sent out of the kingdom. After long wanderings and shipwreck Columbanus found his way to Switzerland, where begins a new and less successful period of missionary activity. The Irish monk was not alone in this mission. One Callus, who had sailed with him from the home country, was his efficient helper, and left an honoured name in the school which he founded after Colum- banus had retired into northern Italy. Together these missionaries sailed up the Rhine to Lake Zurich, where they found a wild pagan folk, worshippers of Odin, who were little inclined to listen to new doc- 88 CELTIC MISSIONARIES trines of any sort. Moreover, these missionaries ap- parently forgot Paul's message delivered on Mars Hill, and instead of patiently revealing the one true God and giving this people a new vision of life in the story of the Christ, they antagonized them by first seeking to break down the worship of the Teutonic deities by forceful means. To-day the missionary labourer has learned a better way, and even in those early centuries there was an Aidan and an Ansgar. " Girt around by rugged mountains," and reflecting in its tranquil waters the clouds and stars of heaven. Lake Constance, to which our missionaries were driven by the enraged inhabitants of Zurich, formed an ideal station for their second mission in Switzer- land. Something of all this beauty doubtless entered the souls of the art-loving Celts ; but, mingled with it, would come the sadder thought of the suffering and sin in which this folk was sunk. Here once in the long ago Christ had been preached and unknown hands had raised a church; but now the graven im- ages of their pagan gods were worshipped at the Christian altar, and in the half-primitive thought of these early missionaries the power of unseen evil forces bound this whole region with cords only to be broken by the one Blessed Name. Two dramatic scenes stand out from the stay of the missionaries at the Roman Brigantia, — one his- torical, the other bearing the mark of the mystic; both, however, typical of the Irish temperament. The first of these is the cleansing of the church of St. Aurelius. Not long after the arrival of the missionaries at Lake Constance, a festival was held in honour of the local deities, whose images desecrated the old Roman church. When the throng had gathered by COLUMBANUS AND GALLUS 89 the beautiful lakeside, Gallus stood up in their midst, telling them that it was for the worship of Jehovah that men had reared these walls within which they were gathered, and that here once more the Christ must be honoured and heathen temple become again the dwelling-place of the Ruler of all men. Then as some seemed ready to believe, the missionaries seized the abhorrent images and, breaking them in pieces, threw the fragments far out into the blue waters of the Bodensee. Columbanus reconsecrated the church, and slowly the people returned to their homes, some pondering deeply over the earnest words of the un- known traveller from beyond the seas, others — and by far the greater number — in anger at the impious action of these foreign intruders, plotting speedy vengeance. The second scene is worthy of the poet's pen. Dusk slumbers over the Bodensee. Far out on the quiet lake the frail boat of Gallus rises and falls on the heaving waters while its master industriously seeks in the dark depths food for his struggling mis- sion. The nature worship of old pagan time has left its imprint upon tlie Celtic church, and for him the encircling mountains are filled with unseen presences, while the wind that ripples the tranquil surface of the waters is the utterance of lost spirits. Suddenly Gallus starts at the sound of a distant cry. At first an inarticulate wail, as he listens he hears the plaint of the Spirit of the Mountains, " Arise and hasten to my assistance! Behold, strangers have come and driven me from my temple. Hasten to my aid, and help me to expel them from the land ! " In answer, from the dark depths by the side of the boat comes the voice of the Spirit of the Waters: 90 CELTIC MISSIONARIES " Lo! even now one of them is busy on my surface, but I cannot injure him. Oftentimes have I desired to break his nets, but as often have I been baffled by the invocation of an all-prevailing Name, which never fails to cross his lips. Thus defended he always de- spises my snares." ^ And Gallus returns to the monastery strengthened in soul. Three years they continued thus at Bregenz, when hostility again arising, Columbanus crossed the Alps into Italy to spend the evening of his life in a mon- astery which he erected at Bobbio. Here the veteran missionary died at an advanced age on November 21, 615. He had helped to win the native church in Burgundy and other parts of Gaul to a higher stand- ard of Christian living, had stood out against the wickedness of the Merovingian court, had won many a convert from the pagan tribes of the Vosges and the Alps, had combated Arianism in his last years in Lombardy, while, most enduring work of all, he had founded centres of Christian influence which for a time at least were to stand for the intellectual and material prosperity of the people, as well as for their religious instruction. When Columbanus withdrew from Bregenz, Gallus stayed on in Switzerland, and for twelve years longer laboured in these forests, founding in the valley of the Steinach a monastery,- which in course of time became one of the most famous schools of Europe. Modestly refusing all honours and gifts, this humble labourer lived tranquilly in his retreat, seeing one and another of his heathen neighbours lay aside the old iMaclear, " Apostles of Mediaeval Europe." 2 St. Gall. COLUMBANUS AND GALLUS 91 belief and accept the faith he loved until, full of days and revered by all the people, he died of fever while returning from a visit to a friend at Arbon. Much as we honour these missionary heroes, how- ever, we must not forget the great number of equally faithful and consecrated labourers who were not lead- ers, as were Columbanus and Gallus, and who did not win lasting earthly fame. Yet of such lives will the true history of Christian missions in Europe be made up when at last every man's work shall be made mani- fest. And first among those to give these unsung heroes their due praise will be their brethren whose work history has perpetuated, but who sought no other reward than their Master's approval. IX THE FOUNDER OF CANTERBURY Augustine and the Conversion of Kent " Thy words are fair ; and far thj' men have come To bring us tidings that ye think are true : But they are doubtful, difficult, unproved ; A god who came in fashion of a thrall, A god who would not fight, but suffered thus — Our gods are warriors. Yet 'tis strange, 'tis strange. But go thou welcome on to Canterbury ; Ye shall have shelter and protection there ; And ye are free to speak to any man, To earl or churl, woman or little child, About these matters. Free are ye ; free, too, Our folk of Kent ; for they are Englishmen, Not to be forced, but ready to be fair." —From The English Church Pageant, 1909. (^thelberht's reply to Augustine.) ISTORIC old Yorkshire, with its wooded hills and pleasant vales, its open wolds and wind-swept cliffs, has given to English Chris- tianity many a name of which the Briton and his kin- dred across the sea are justly proud. Where the red sandstone ruins of Whitby's abbey church stand on a lofty crag overlooking the North Sea, in the very teeth of the winds that sweep unhindered across the desolate moors, the humble cowherd Csedmon sang his immortal lays. From this same North country centuries later there went forth one who, as Vicar 92 H THE CONVERSION OF KENT 93 of Lutterworth, was to give to his countrymen their first great EngHsh Bible, while to another Yorkshire reformer England is indebted for her first printed translation of the Bible. But long before the days of Coverdale and Wyclif and Csedmon, when Yorkshire was still Anglo-Saxon Deira, there sailed one day from the kingdom of yElla a group of fair-haired lads destined for the slave markets of the Imperial City, who all unwittingly were to bring to Saxon England the first missionaries of the gospel. The historians have delighted to relate the story of that memorable meeting in the crowded market- place of the Roman Greatheart with the homesick Bernician slave lads/ He was a man of broad sym- pathies, this Gregory of whom they tell us, one to whom, as to our own Lincoln, all suffering made an immediate appeal. More than once in later years, although the Roman Church constantly approved the holding of slaves, Gregory gave freedom to wretched captives brought to Rome for distribution among the patrician families of the surrounding country, even selling some of the sacred plate for their ransom, since, as he said, " the Redeemer had become incar- nate to set men free." It was only natural, then, that Gregory should stop that morning on his walk through the Forum, attracted by the unusual beauty of the English lads, and more natural still that, having given up his immense wealth for the Master whom he served, he should first of all inquire of the Jewish slave dealer whether these children of a distant nation and a strange speech were worshippers of the one 1 These boys were probably captives taken during .Ella's cam- paigns in the northern kingdom, Bernicia, which included Dur- ham, Northumberland, and the southeastern part of Scotland. 94 THE FOUNDER OF CANTERBURY true God. Their master answering that they were by birth and training pagan, Gregory became sad at heart because of the far-away island and its need, and not long afterward set out to carry the gospel story to the Angles of Deira. Unfortunately, Rome cared little for missions and much for its own need, and Gregory was altogether too great a man to be thus lost to the home church. He had not gone far when he was overtaken and commanded to return to the capital, where, a few years later, he was raised to the pontifical chair by the death of Pelagius. Years passed, during which Gregory's far-sighted policies were bringing order out of chaos in the ec- clesiastical system of which he had become leader. Then when the more important problems had been solved and the Roman bishop felt that for a space he could give his mind to other matters, his thought turned back to that earlier time and a mission was planned for the far-away island of Britain. As leader of the little band of missionaries, Gregory chose Augustine, prior of St. Andrew's, a monastery which the Bishop had erected on the site of his father's home and in which he had spent his earlier years. Augustine was to be assisted by forty monks, most of them from the same monastery, and in the late winter or early spring of 596 the party set out on their long and toilsome journey to Britain. At the gateway of the monastery Gregory spoke his last words of blessing and counsel to the missiona- ries, and then watched them wind slowly down the hill- slope to be lost from view in the tortuous streets of the ancient city. When at last the great Bishop was left alone on the hilltop, gazing out over the mighty ruins where not so many years before pagan Rome had THE CONVERSION OF KENT 95 sought to appease the gods by the death of Christian converts, we wonder if this man, who held first place in the Roman Church, did not half wish himself a humble monk once more, that he might have the joy denied him now of going in and out among this sturdy peo- ple of the west and winning them to the Master's service. As long and difficult a journey with as unknown and dangerous a field at its close lay before these newly appointed missionaries as ever tested the cour- age of a Williams or a Mofifat; for distance is not always measured in miles and travel in the sixth cen- tury was not so safe as it had been when the Empire was unshaken. Unaccustomed either to extreme physical exertion or to battling with unforeseen diffi- culties, and terrified by the reports which some of their fellow travellers gave them of the fierce and barbarous Teutons among whom they were to labour, when at last they reached a haven of refuge in the island monastery of Lerins, lying off the modern Cannes^ they made all haste to send Augustine back to Rome, begging for a return to their quiet life on the Ccclian Hill. Had they known Gregory better, they would not have wasted time in urging such a request. His refusal was kind but firm. " No man, having set his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of Heaven." It was a land of strife and turmoil to which these messengers of peace came in the April days of the following year, and in all those separate warring kingdoms no one as yet dreamed of a united England. To weld these hostile peoples into one nation holding a common sceptre of power, there must come the uni- fying influence of such a message as Augustine and 96 THE FOUNDER OF CANTERBURY his monks had been sent to preach. This troublous condition of the country doubtless explains the choice of Kent rather than of Deira for the first field of missionary enterprise. For a new king reigned in the north, whither Gregory had planned so long be- fore to carry the message, and so hostile was this chieftain to British Christianity that to attempt the establishment of a mission within his dominions would have been all but folly. In the south, however, a door seemed opened for the good work in the atti- tude of King ^thelberht of Kent toward the religion of his wife, a Christian princess from the north of France. Queen Bertha, so the missionaries would learn, was allowed to worship God unhindered in a little British church not far from the royal palace of Canterbury. To the tolerant nature, of ^thelberht, therefore, it was decided that Augustine should make his first appeal. And so it came about that on a spring day not long after Easter, in the year of our Lord 597, a little ship, bearing to our Saxon fore- fathers the first missionaries of the gospel, dropped anchor in the sheltered haven which divides the white cliffs of St. Margaret's from those of Ramsgate. Where to-day in the midst of broad fields stands the tiny hamlet of Ebbsfleet, marking the old coastline of Pegwell Bay, on ground which, tradition tells us, a century and a half earlier had been the landing place of Hengist and Horsa, Augustine's little band of Christian labourers moored their vessel, disembarking on the shores of Thanet to begin a conquest far mightier and more lasting than any yet accomplished by Roman and Saxon. In this little island, formed by the delta of the Stour, the missionaries waited while the interpreters THE CONVERSION OF KENT 97 whom they had brought with them from Gaul has- tened to Canterbury with Augustine's message to the king. The next scene in the story of England's con- version is very typical of that primitive age and its customs. King ^thelberht of Kent, moved partly by his knowledge of the larger civilization of the South and partly by his respect for the faith which his good queen held, came in person to Thanet to dis- cover for himself what manner of men these new- comers were who thus asked admission to his king- dom, and whether it was safe to allow their teaching free course among his subjects. A memorable event it was in England's history when, for the first time, these two noble characters were brought face to face, — the Christian labourer who, by his sincere life and faith, was to win a kingdom to his cause, and the good king, still honoured after all these centuries for his fair-minded conservatism and large toleration. We can see them even yet assembled under a giant oak on the higher ground which formed the central portion of the island, while the wide heavens bent over them in blessing and the sound of the distant waves filled the pauses of the interview with a low, sweet music. On one side would be the Saxon king, surrounded by his tall, broad-shouldered thegns, their long yellow locks falling over tunics of rich wools, wearing on their arms twisted torques of gold, while spear and helmet and shield rested on the ground at their side. Over against these sturdy warriors, type of the old pagan life, would appear the approaching procession of black-robed missionaries, led by the noble figure of Augustine, and carrying in their midst a great cross of silver and a picture of the Christ crudely painted on a bit of board. Chanting a prayer 98 THE FOUNDER OF CANTERBURY for themselves and the people among whom they had come, these monks advanced toward the king's com- pany and, at ^thelberht's command, sat down on the green grass and beneath the blue heavens preached Christ to these sturdy pagan warriors. When Au- gustine had finished his message, ^thelberht called his thegns together, at the close of the consultation making this reply to the missionaries' request for per- mission to preach in his kingdom: " Your words and promises are fair, but because they are new to us, and of uncertain import, I cannot consent to them so far as to forsake that which I have so long observed with the whole English nation. But, because you are come from far as strangers into my kingdom, and, as I conceive, are desirous to impart to us those things which you believe to be true, and most beneficial, we desire not to harm you, but will give you favourable entertainment, and take care to supply you with all things necessary to your sustenance; nor do we forbid you to preach and gain as many as you can to your religion." ^ And so Augustine and his monks were invited to the royal capital at Durovernum, and the last stage of their journey was begun. Across the downs from Richborough, over the solidly built Roman road, they came at last to the summit of St. Martin's Hill, and had their first view of the city which their efforts were to make a stronghold of Christianity for all future ages. Far below them it lay on the banks of the Stour — a city of low wooden dwellings, built about the rude palace of the king. On the slope of the hill, between them and the city, they would see a little chapel of Roman brick, telling them that they were iBede I, 25. THE CONVERSION OF KENT m not coming to a land wholly pagan, for here Liudhard daily conducted Christian service for the queen and her ladies. Midway between this chapel, which was dedicated to St. Martin, and the city on the river shore below, their guide would point to a grove of oak, within whose shadows, he would tell them, stood the temple in which ^Ethelberht was wont to worship his Saxon deities. As the missionaries paused for a mo- ment on the hilltop and looked down over Christian church and heathen temple to the homes of these sturdy Saxons, whom they were already beginning to regard with admiration, a sudden realization of the magnitude of their task must have swept over them with an almost overwhelming force. Could the power represented by that little chapel and their own small company meet and turn the mighty tide of heathen superstition ? It was a question awful enough, surely, to make stouter hearts than these falter under the re- sponsibility. Somewhere near the site of the church of St. Al- phege, Augustine and his helpers were given lodging under the very shadow of a heathen temple. While they waited here to learn the pleasure of the king, we can picture them setting about the mastery of the difficult Saxon speech, going daily at the hours of wor- ship to the little church on the hillside, and above all, leading a simple, earnest life of devotion to all things true and lovely and of good report, which gained for themselves and for their Master, whose ambassadors they were, the respectful consideration of many of the more thoughtful citizens. Perhaps, after all, Augustine could not have come to this little kingdom of southern England at a time more favourable to the success of the mission. Only a cen- 100 THE FOUNDER OF CANTERBURY tury and a half had elapsed since the first band of Jutes had moored their ships by Kentish shores, and had set foot upon a land where they were destined to win for themselves new homes and new dominion. A fierce, untamable, and marauding people in the old country, where they possessed scarcely more than island villages in a wide ocean of. desolate moors and morass, they were by this time feeling the influence of new surroundings, and the older civilization which they were supplanting, and through this very upheaval of old tradition in their material life and the necessity of conforming to changed conditions, were the more ready to weigh the claims of a new faith and set it in contrast over against the religion of their less civilized ancestors.^ Among the first-fruits of Augustine's mission in England was the open-minded king who had welcomed the missionaries at Thanet, and on the Whitsunday following their arrival, so tradition says, the monks gathered in St. Martin's church to witness the baptism of the royal convert. Happily, ^thelberht, as we have already seen, was a liberal-minded king, and Gregory, in his directions to the missionaries, had shown a spirit of toleration later to be lost and found again only after long centuries of bitterness and blood- shed. So no man in all the Kentish kingdom was forced to leave his pagan deities unless he freely chose to adopt the new faith. Yet such was the irresistible beauty of the message and so great the loyalty of these fierce Teutons to their king that the work at first went forward by leaps and bounds. Doubtless, there were many who thought more of the king's favour than of Woden or of Christ; but, crude as the religious life of 1 Kent was of course in communication with Gaul. ST. martin's church, canterbury CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL THE CONVERSION OF KENT 101 many of the new converts must have been, and mixed largely with heathen practices and superstition, yet a fire had been kindled in southeastern England which we believe will never go out so long as the English nation endures, — a fire the light from which shines forth to-day beyond the boundaries of British terri- tory to brighten the gloom of distant lands yet ig- norant of the revelation come to all men in the advent of the Christ. For these new converts — ten thousand were baptized in a single day in the Swale — there was need of new churches, and again Augustine had cause to rejoice in the zeal of the newly converted king. To provide for the mission work within the city a Roman church was restored and a suitable dwelling given to Augustine and his labourers, tradition even going far enough to afiirm that the king gave them his royal palace and withdrew with his court to Reculver, on the northern coast of Kent. In the old Roman church which the king placed at Augustine's disposal we have a glimpse of Canterbury's first cathedral. In form it was an oblong basilica with eastern and western apses and towers on the north and south sides. At the western end, raised slightly above the nave stood Augustine's cathedra or throne, with the high altar in front, near the centre of the apse. Augustine reconsecrated it " in the name of our holy Saviour, God, and Lord, Jesus Christ," and the Roman basilica became the first Christ Church of England's future ecclesiastical me- tropolis. The king also desired that the temple wherein of old he had worshipped Thor and Woden should be transformed into a place for the teaching of the Christian faith and the Church of St. Pancras was the result. Near by Augustine founded a monastery 102 THE FOUNDER OF CANTERBURY for the training of Christian workers/ Two manu- script gospels still extant, which have been called by Dean Stanley " the mother-books of England," were part of Gregory's first donation to the monastic library. So during all the last years of Augustine's busy life he would eagerly watch the steadily rising walls of the buildings which were to shelter " the mother-school, the mother-university of England, the seat of letters and of study at a time when Cambridge was a desolate fen and Oxford a tangled forest in a wide waste of waters." ^ While the work was thus taking root in Kent, Au- gustine was looking out beyond the borders of ^thel- berht's immediate domains and seeking a means of reaching the other kingdoms of southern England. For this larger work he felt the necessity of co-opera- tion with the British Church in Wales, despite the fact of the intense hatred of the exiled Celts for their con- querors. The first meeting with the representatives of the Celtic church took place on the borders of West Saxon territory probably somewhere on the south shore of the Severn. Here, under an oak long afterwards known as Augustine's oak, the Archbishop of the Eng- lish sought the aid of the British bishops on condition that they acknowledge him as their spiritual head and keep Easter according to Roman reckoning. This first conference proving partially unsuccessful, a sec- ond meeting was planned for the final decision of the British Church. Let us listen to the story as the Ven- erable Bede has related it in his History.^ 1 It seems very fitting that the site of the monastery should still be occupied by a missionary college. 2 Dean Stanley, " Memorials of Canterbury." ^Bede II, 2. THE CONVERSION OF KENT 103 " They that were to go to the aforesaid council, be- tool<: themselves first to a certain holy and discreet man, who was wont to lead the life of a hermit amongst them, to consult with him, whether they ought, at the preaching of Augustine, to forsake their traditions. He answered, ' H he is a man of God, follow him.' — * How shall we know that ? ' said they. He replied, ' Our Lord saith. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; if then, Augustine is meek and lowly of heart, it^is to be be- lieved that he bears the yoke of Christ himself, and offers it to you to bear. But, if he is harsh and proud, it is plain that he is not of God, nor are we to regard his words.' They said again, ' And how shall we dis- cern even this ? ' — ' Do you contrive,' said the anchor- ite, ' that he first arrive with his company at the place where the synod is to be held; and if at your approach he rises up to you, hear him submissively, being assured that he is the servant of Christ ; but if he despises you, and does not rise up to you, whereas you are more in number, let him also be despised by you.' " They did as he directed ; and it happened, that as they approached, Augustine was sitting on a chair. When they perceived it, they were angry, and, charg- ing him with pride, set themselves to contradict all he said. He said to them, * Many things ye do which are contrary to our custom, or rather to the custom of the universal church, and yet, if you will comply with me in these three matters, to wit, to keep Easter at the due time; to fulfil the ministry of baptism, by which we are born again to God, according to the custom of • the holy Roman Apostolic Church; and to join with us in preaching the Word of God to the English na- tion, we will gladly suffer all the other things you do, 104 THE FOUNDER OF CANTERBURY though contrary to our customs.' They answered that they would do none of those things nor receive him as their archbishop; for they said among themselves, ' If he would not rise up to us now, how much more will he despise us, as of no account, if we begin to be under his subjection.' Then the man of God, Augustine, is said to have threatened them, that if they would not accept peace with their brethren, they should have war with their enemies; and if they would not preach the way of life to the English nation, they should suffer at their hands the vengeance of death." What a revelation of our faulty human nature do we find in this short narrative. Suspicion, pride, per- sonal animosity, narrowness of vision — allowed to take precedence of the one supreme need, the conver- sion of the English to the Christ. And what added force the story gives to that last prayer of the Mas- ter's that His disciples all might be one — one in motive, one in love for the world, one in love for Him. Thank God, we are slowly learning the lesson that the work and not the worker is of importance, that only when self is forgotten in the magnitude of the task, and trivialities are given their own place, can the real work of the world be accomplished. Disappointed in his attempts in the south and west, Augustine turned toward the kingdom of the East Saxons, which was tributary to Kent. Mellitus, one of four men recently sent from Rome to the mission in Canterbury, was consecrated bishop and sent to preach to the pagan metropolis of Londinium. A sec- ond mission was established among the western Jutes at the present Rochester. This was in 604, and not long after — the year is uncertain — on the twenty-sixth of May " the Apostle of the Anglo-Saxons " was called THE CONVERSION OF KENT 105 to the reward of his labours, and buried near the un- finished church of his monastery; but not until he had seen the gospel willingly and gladly accepted by the king and people of Kent, who were of a truth a free folk, " Englishmen, Not to be forced, but ready to be fair." Good King ^thelberht lived many years after the death of Augustine and to the end gave his sympathy and support to the ministers of Christ who succeeded Augustine in the care of the Kentish Church. Ead- bald, his son, however, would seem to have cared little for the Christian faith, and soon after ^thelberht's death relapsed into paganism, with that wonderful in- fluence which every English prince of those early days possessed carrying his thegns with him into the old idolatry. There is perhaps an explanation for this temporary apostasy of king and court in the waning power of Kent. Bede places ^thelberht among the four great Bretwaldas, exercising lordship over all the provinces south of the Humber. In the last years of his life, the king had lost much of this prestige, and the ambitious prince, his son, would see, in the adop- tion of a faith unacceptable to these under-nations, a cause of his father's reverses. Christianity was placed under ban, and Justus and Mellitus crossed into Gaul. Laurentius, the archbishop, was about to follow, when, with true Italian ingenuity, he went to the prince and showed him the stripes which, he said, he had received from the blessed Peter in punishment for deserting his post of duty, as, on the preceding night, he had lain before the altar of the Church of St. Peter and St. 106 THE FOUNDER OF CANTERBURY Paul, "pouring forth many prayers for the state of the Church." " Hast thou," the Apostle had said, " forgotten my example, who, for the sake of those little ones, whom Christ commended to me in token of His affection, underwent at the hands of infidels and enemies of Christ, bonds, stripes, imprisonment, afflictions, and lastly, death itself, even the death of the cross, that I might at last be crowned with Him ? " Little as we may approve such deception on the part of the missionary, the results were all that Laurentius had hoped. Eadbald, when he saw what the bishop had suffered for his sake, was touched and afraid, and made haste to renounce his heathen gods and accept for himself and for his people, the religion of the Christ. Once again, and finally, the Christian Church was established in the kingdom of the Jutes, X A ROMAN BISHOP AND A NORTHUMBRIAN KING Paulinus and Eadwine " Woden falls, and Thor Is overturned ; the mace, in battle heaved (So might they dream) till victory was achieved, Drops, and the god himself is seen no more. Temple and altar sink, to hide their shame Amid oblivious weeds. ' O, come to me, Ye heavy laden ! ' such the inviting voice Heard near fresh streams ; and thousands, who rejoice In the new right, the pledge of sanctity, Shall, by regenerate life, the promise claim." — Wordsworth, " Ecclesiastical Sonnets." HEAVY darkness rested upon the low wooden palace where the East Anglian king Rsedwald was holding his court. Beyond an irregular and indistinct line of shadowy buildings the long, angry surges of the North Sea were breaking with a dull roar upon a defenceless coast, while away to the west the level fenland stretched on and on in an un- ending and wearisome expanse. Through the open doors of the king's banqueting-hall, where that night Raedwald had entertained strange guests from the north, the flare of torches streamed forth upon the blackness of the night, intensifying the gloom which enshrouded a silent figure seated on a stone bench just outside the gateway leading to the hall. The man's 107 108 A ROMAN BISHOP head was buried in his hands in an attitude of troubled thought, and so motionless he sat that he seemed a figure carved from the solid stone which formed his seat. Borne on the night wind across desolate wastes came the melancholy cry of the wild fowl, but he heeded it not. Behind him one by one the lights went out in the palace, and the noise died away in the serv- ants' quarters, but the bowed figure did not stir. When he had sat thus until the chill mist which pre- cedes the dawn had crept slowly about the hall and hidden even the shadowy outlines of the adjacent buildings, a tall form approached from out the dark- ness and in a low tone addressed the silent man. "What doest thou here?" the newcomer asked, " while other men sleep? " Slowly the bent head was raised and the square shoulders thrown back with a princely haughtiness ap- parent even in the dim light. " And why carest thou where I spend the hours of the night time ? " The tone in which the words were uttered matched the man's princely bearing, but the stranger was not awed. "Think not," the other made reply, "that I am ignorant of thy trouble. I know, Eadwine, thou exiled prince of Northumbria, that this night men from the usurper's kingdom have sought to cut off thy last place of refuge, and have brought large promises from the warlike ^thel frith to win Raedwald's con- sent to thy assassination. I know, too, the answer, worthy of the great Ella's son, which thou gavest thy friend when he begged thee to flee for thy life, and how thou didst refuse to be the first to break the bond existing between thyself and thy royal host." " Thou hast spoken truly," Eadwine returned. " I PAULINUS AND EADWINE 109 will not flee from one who has promised to defend me. and, besides, there is no other refuge open to me." " But if one came to thee with the assurance of thy safety and a promise of thy return to thy father's kingdom and thine, what wouldst thou do for such a one?" " My gratitude should match his kindness," was the quick response. " And if he who promised these things should tell thee of a better way than any thy ancestors or kins- folk ever heard of, wouldst thou follow his teach- ings?" " In very truth I would," the exiled prince replied. Then as the two men stood solemnly facing each other in the chill grey dawn, the stranger raised his right hand and, placing it impressively upon Eadwine's brow, he said, " When this sign shall be given thee, remember our discourse and delay not to fulfil thy promise." And with these words the stranger vanished in the gloom as mysteriously as he had come. • •••••••• An April sun is flooding the level valley of the Idle with its warm rays and darting gleams of fiery light from the helmets and shields and battle-axes of two hostile hosts met in deadly conflict by the peaceful waters of the little stream, where the birds have sung and the flowers have bloomed undisturbed since the days when Roman legions crossed these fords. Un- mindful of the joy of the budding springtime which Eostre, the shining goddess, is lavishing about them, these " battle-brave " Teutons, over whose heads stream the rival banners of ^thelfrith of Northum- bria and Rsedwald of East Anglia are wielding their 110 A ROMAN BISHOP heavy weapons with the fierce fur}^ of their untrained race, while in the thickest of the strife the flash of gold-gleaming helmet and jewelled mail tell where the banished Deiran ^theling forever meets and rolls back the tide of the advancing foe by the strength of his own princely leadership. For the words of the stranger have proved sooth and, admonished by his fearless wife, Raedwald has sent back to the Prince of Northumbria a haughty refusal to sacrifice his guest, and to-day the warrior thegns of the two great heathen kings are battling for the fate of Northumbria's throne. Fight valiantly, O exiled son of the great ^lla, for thou boldest the key which shall unlock the gateway to the entrance of the truth among thy north- ern hills and wolds, and if thou fail this day to win back thy kingdom, weary years must yet go by before the Christ shall be preached in the home of the Deiran slave-lads. Eight years had passed since the waters of the Idle were darkened with the gore of the defeated Nor- thumbrian hosts, and Eadwine had long sat upon the throne of his fathers. With the original Deira, over which ^lla ruled, had been united the northern king- dom of Bernicia, and this greater Northumbria was to become, under Eadwine's wise and valiant leadership, the greatest of the English principalities, while as Bretwalda, or overlord, the new king would eventually exercise authority from Eadwinesborough on the Forth to the country of the West Saxons in the south. Meanwhile the worthy king sought a helpmeet to share his royal cares and, remembering the former influence of the Kentish court, and having perhaps heard, even in the far north, of the beauty and wisdom of ^thel- PAULINUS AND EADWINE 111 biirh, the Princess Tata, as she was familiarly called, sent ambassadors to Eadbald of Kent asking the hand of the king's sister in marriage. Eadbald answered that he could not give his sister in marriage to a heathen prince. The Northumbrian king, however, seems to have been as determined in his quest for a wife as he had been in his quest for a kingdom. Promptly the envoys reappeared at Canterbury with assurances from their king that, were the Princess ^thelburh permitted to become his queen, he would allow her and all her attendants freely to follow the worship of their God. And so on a July day, twenty- eight years after the landing of the first missionaries on Thanet, a successor of Augustine poured the oil of consecration upon the head of one Paulinus, setting him apart to the solemn task of Christianizing the great heathen kingdom of Northumbria. For though the tall, spare man who accompanied the royal party to Ead wine's capital came nominally as the chaplain of the future queen, yet the fires of missionary zeal burned in the deepset eyes, and the noble prince, his host, would yet have cause to rejoice in the day when the minister of ^thelburh's faith entered the gates of Eboracum.^ On an April day in the year of our Lord 626 the Northumbrian king was holding court in one of his country homes on the picturesque shores of the Der- went, in central England. The extraordinary suc- cesses which had followed the return of the prince to the dominions from which he had been driven when only three years old, — his victories over the Britons of the west and north, his supremacy over the English of Mid-Britain, together with his alliance with Kent »York. U2 A ROMAN BISHOP through his marriage with yEthelburh, — had naturally aroused fear and jealousy among the still unconquered Saxon kingdoms. As a protest against his farther ad- vance Cwichelm, a prince of the West Saxons, had sent ambassadors to Eadwine, by whom the envoys were being received with all the state befitting the court of the great Bretwalda. Fair and peaceful were the words of Eumer as he pleaded the cause of the southern people from whom he had come, when sud- denly the quick flash of a dagger told the real purpose of the envoy's visit, and the empire of the north might have fallen with its leader but for the heroism of Lilla, one of the king's faithful thegns. Eadwine's gratitude for so unexpected a danger and deliverance was increased that night by the advent of a daughter, the little princess Eanflsed, and his softened mood gave the zealous Italian missionary the opening for which he had been waiting. With the earnestness of his southern nature, Paulinus seems to have been able to convince the king that not his Teutonic gods but the one Lord of all had sent him the double blessing of his wonderful day. At least, Eadwine gave the baby princess to Paulinus for baptism and promised that, were he allowed victory over his enemies, the West Saxons, he would listen to the new teaching. Long and weary days those must have been which the Roman missionary and the Christian queen had spent since their coming to Eadwine's court. Not in all that northern kingdom was there a church of the living God, and so long as Eadwine remained unconverted, the preaching of Paulinus would have little effect upon this pagan folk. Yet up to this Easter season neither the exhortations of the zealous Italian nor the tender pleadings of the gentle ^Ethelburh had sufficed to turn PAULINUS AND EADWINE 113 the king's thought to the Christ whose servants they were. Now, at last, it is true, Eadwine seemed to have opened his heart to an entrance of the truth, but would God give him victory over his foes, or would Eadwine remember his vow in the pride of greater conquests? Very anxiously these two must have waited for the slow coming of news from the battle- field, and very grievous must have been their disap- pointment when the king returned from slaying and burning among his subjugated enemies of the south and, while listening thoughtfully to the words of Paulinus, nevertheless allowed the days and weeks and months to slip away without accepting for himself the leadership of the Christ. And in truth it was not a step for a man in Eadwine's position to take without careful consideration. Proud of his royal ancestry, prouder yet of his own splendid conquests, ruler of dominions which stretched from the Forth to the Channel and, in the north at least, from eastern to western sea, a Teuton of the Teutons, could he bring himself to follow worthily One whose service de- manded a spirit of forgiveness unknown to the tra- ditions of his race? Yet with all their haughty strength these fierce warriors, ancestors of a people mighty in their moral and spiritual conquests, pos- sessed a sense of honour and fair dealing which, be- queathed to their descendants, we may thank God, has not departed from the two great nations which speak the mother tongue of the Saxons. For hours at a time, says Bede, the king would sit in moody silence, thinking, thinking, forever thinking. He had given up the old religion, in which he could no longer be- lieve, and doubtless his heart told him that the way of the Christ was the way of life, but he was not yet 114 A ROMAN BISHOP ready to declare himself openly a Christian. Long councils he held with the wisest of his warriors; Paulinus and ^thelburh pleaded; but still the proud Bretwalda hesitated. At last, one day when the new life of the springtide was casting its magic beauty over the reviving earth, Paulinus approached Eadwine as he sat musing upon these great mysteries, and quietly laying his hand upon the king's head, " Rememberest thou this sign ? " he asked. Like Christian's burden at the cross, all Eadwine's doubts and hesitations fell from him when he thought of his promise to the stranger guest who had brought him that night of the long ago prophecy of deliverance and a kingdom. What he had not been willing to do for the salvation of his own soul he was now all eager- ness to do out of pure gratitude, and in the keeping of the solemn vow he had made in his helplessness. And so, trembling as only a strong soul can tremble under the influence of a great decision, the powerful Bretwalda promised to be immediately baptized with all his house. In accordance with the customs of his people, Ead- wine assembled his ealdormen in a conference not far from the heathen temple of his ancestors at Good- manham, beyond York. A strange picture this half- barbaric assembly must have presented as they met to discuss the mysteries of life and of death. For these stalwart warriors, dwelling among the mists and snows of a northern clime, often unruly in their passions, were, after all, a serious folk at heart, to whom life was a very real thing, and doubtless many of them had long before become dissatisfied with the superstitions of the earlier days. When the king had arrived, preceded by his stand- PAULINUS AND EADWINE 115 ard-bearer and the tufted spear or tufa, which recalled the authority of the old-time Roman emperor, he called upon those present to give in turn their opinion of the religion with which this dark-haired man from the south asked them to replace the worship of the great Woden. Then, as now, there seem to have been two distinct conceptions of the purpose of religious faith and practice. The first and less worthy of these was represented by the pagan priest Coifi. " Long and faithfully, O King, have I served the gods of our fathers," he said, " and they have given me no help in gaining advancement. If, therefore, the new faith shall present a way to better things, we will embrace it without delay." But, when Coifi had finished, an aged ealdorman, whose face must have reflected the wistful longings of a soul which hungered after a knowledge of the things of the spirit, rose and, with a mystic beauty of lan- guage born of the age in which he lived, addressed his companions. " So methinks, O King, is the life of man on earth, as if, while you and your nobles are feasting on a win- ter's night, with the fire blazing in the midst of your hall, and the rain and storm raging outside, a sparrow should fly into the hall by one door and fly out by an- other. For the moment that he is inside he is in warmth and shelter, and then again he goes out into the wintry weather and is seen no more. So, for a short space man's life is before our eyes, but of what is before or what follows it, we know nothing. If, then, this new teaching can enlighten us as to these things, by all means let us hearken to it." ^ *Bede II, 13. Translation in Hunt's " English Churcli from Its Foundation to the Norman Conquest." 116 A ROIVIAN BISHOP The words of the noble-minded thegn seemed to touch a common chord in the hearts of these northern warriors, and one and another expressed approval of a faith which offered an explanation of the mysterious Beyond. At last Coifi, perhaps half ashamed of his earlier speech, at least broad-minded enough to listen to the priest of a rival religion, suggested that Pau- linus should expound at this time the principles of the Christian faith. After ten years of patient waiting, the missionary had gained an audience and, in the presence of the king and his court, preached Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world and the mes- senger of the one true God, to this pagan folk for whom he had so long prayed. And so the good work was begun and Coifi himself rode to the temple of the old faith and, in the presence of all the wondering folk from the surrounding villages, cast a spear against its walls and commanded the entire precincts to be de- stroyed by fire. In Eadwine's capital, where to-day stands the noble minster of St. Peter, with its magnificent fagade and old stained glass, the Northumbrian king built a little wooden church, in which, on Easter eve, 627, just a year after his remarkable deliverance and his promise to investigate the new faith, Eadwine and many of his household went down into the baptismal waters to be born again to a new life. Among those who that day received the rite was Hilda, the grandniece of Eadwine, and future abbess of Whitby, who was destined to exert no inconsiderable influence upon the early history of the church in England.^ His decision once formed, Eadwine was as zealous for the spread of Christianity as ^thelberht had been 1 Appendix I, note 3. PAULINUS AND EADWINE 117 in Kent, and in the campaign of active missionary ef- fort upon which PauHnus and his efficient helper, James, now entered in both Deira and Bernicia, these messengers of good tidings, Hke Augustine and Aidan, had the protection and support of the country's ruler. Very fortunate indeed were the first English missiona- ries in the fair-minded investigations which those strong Anglo-Saxon kings were willing to make of the new religion offered to their people, and in the practical grasp of its teachings which, within sixty years of the first entrance of the word among these warring pagan peoples, resulted practically in driving out idol worship from the island and in opening a way for the rapid introduction of Christian schools and churches, with all the beneficent effects which Chris- tian education must ever bring to a people open to the reception of truth. Sometimes with only his fellow labourers, more often probably in the company of the king, who rarely remained long in his central capital of York, Paulinus went about Deira preaching the gospel to the multi- tudes which flocked eagerly to hear this new doctrine which king and priesthood had adopted. Often the wooded banks of the Swale looked down upon the baptism of groups of new converts who had turned from their idols to the worship of the one God. Once at least Paulinus went on a journey to Bernicia, re- maining at the king's country-seat of Adgefrin thirty- six days, instructing the people who resorted thither " from all the villages and places, in Christ's saving word; and when they were instructed, he washed them with the water of absolution in the river Glen, which is close by." ^ iBede II, 14. 118 A ROMAN BISHOP At another time he made a preaching tour in Lindis- wara, south of the Humber, and in the " Ecclesiastical History " we are told that an old man of the district related to Bede how " he had been baptized at noon-day by the Bishop Paulinus, in the presence of King Ead- wine, with a great number of people, in the river Trent, near the city which in the English tongue is called Tiowulfingacsestir." This man described Paulinus as " tall of stature, a little stooping, his hair black, his visage thin, his nose slender and aquiline, his aspect both venerable and majestic." ^ At this time also the reeve or governor of Lindum (now Lincoln), one Blsecca, was converted with his whole house, and built a stone church in his city, the forerunner of the present cathedral. Meanwhile Eadwine did not forget the country that had sheltered him in his time of need and helped him to recover his kingdom. Rsedwald was dead, it is true, but his son, who now ruled East Anglia, was the friend of the Northumbrian king, and recognized him as overlord. This friendship Eadwine used for per- suading Earpwald to embrace the Christian faith, and within two years of Eadwine's conversion the East Anglian king was baptized and accepted Christianity for his nation. But the old faith seems to have been strong in the dominion where Rsedwald placed an altar to Christ among those to his heathen deities, and soon after his baptism Earpwald was slain by a hostile thegn, and Woden and Thor once more held sway in this little kingdom by the sea. How East Anglia was recovered to the faith is related elsewhere. As we have already seen, Eadwine had built up for himself a more powerful realm than any yet ruled by 1 Bede II. i6. PAULINUS AND EADWINE 119 an English king. Even as a heathen prince, he had governed his dominions wisely and well, and now that he had accepted Christianity, a way seemed opened for the entrance of the new faith into all the provinces over which the Bretwalda exercised authority. Un- happily, we have no such pleasant ending for the story of the mission of Paulinus in the North. The fear which had caused Eadwine to hesitate so long and had prevented many a heathen prince from accepting the truth in which he secretly believed, was soon to be realized in the empire which Eadwine had established. In that same year of 626 there had come to the throne of the central kingdom of Mercia a man in middle life, already known for his warlike exploits, who, for the extension of his dominions and through fear of Ead wine's supremacy, was willing to take upon himself the leadership of the still formidable heathen forces. A rival power had arisen of which the great Bretwalda need take careful thought. Yet, powerful warrior as Penda proved himself to be, had Eadwine remained a worshipper of the old gods, the Northum- brian supremacy would doubtless have had little to fear from the accession of the Mercian king. We have seen, however, the revolt of East Anglia against the introduction of the new faith, and the allegiance of the Middle English to the heathen Penda, all which Eadwine seems to have allowed without the protest to have been expected from his earlier policy. The ad- vance of Penda in the south now threatened, if it did not entirely destroy, Eadwine's supremacy in Wessex. The return of a Christian prince ^ to East Anglia was the signal for an open struggle between Christianity, under Eadwine, and the forces of heathenism, led by ^Sigeberht or Sigbert. 120 A ROMAN BISHOP the IMercian king. Penda formed an alliance with the British Csedwalla and, on October 12, 633, met the armies of Northumbria at Heathfield, a desolate moor to the south of the river Don. A bitter day it was for the Christians of Northumbria, for Eadwine was slain upon the field of battle, and Paulinus, dismayed by the reviving heathenism and the ravages of Csed- walla, fled to Kent with yEthelburh and her children. We wish that it had not been so, that the man who had won so many converts and had taught a powerful prince the way of life, having sent the widowed queen in safety to her childhood's home, had believed his Lord called him to use all the force of his strong per- sonality to keep these stalwart warriors faithful to the Christ who had suffered far worse persecution than ever they should face. Perhaps then we should not have had to record " the terrible year of Northum- bria." One bright spot there is in the picture. In all his labours in the Deiran kingdom, Paulinus had been aided by his deacon or helper, James, a man of very noble Christian character. So long as Paulinus re- mained in the north the work of the humble deacon was overshadowed by that of his superior; but when the Roman bishop fled in all haste southward, James refused to join the escaping party, but all through the terrible scenes which followed remained with those of his planting in the northern kingdom, until with the coming of Oswald, two years later, the light shone once more over the hills and valleys of Deira. XI THE GLORY OF THE NORTH COUNTRY AlDAN AND CUTHBERT " God's saints are shining lights ; who stays Here long, must passe O'er dark hills, and swift streams, and steep ways As smooth as glasse ; But these all night, Like candles, shed Their beams, and light Us unto bed, " They are indeed our pillar-fires Seen as we go ; They are that city's shining spires We travell to." — Henry Vaughan. CLOSE to the Northumberland coast, a few miles south of Berwick, lies the little island of Lin- disfarne, containing a small castle and the ruins of an eleventh century monastery, which Scott has made famous in the stanzas of " Marmion." Like Mont St. Michel in Brittany, this bit of historic ground is only partially an island, for twice a day the ebbing sea-waves leave broad stretches of wet sands, over which it is possible to cross on foot to Holy Isle. On these few acres, which by their seclusion reminded him of his beloved lona, the gentle Aidan, as soon as Oswald had restored order in the north, founded a 121 122 GLORY OF THE NORTH COUNTRY Christian school, from which the story of the Christ was once more carried among the hills and dales of Northumbria, this time not by Roman missionaries from the south but by the untiring enthusiasm of labourers trained in the Celtic church which Columba had established in Scotland. The story of the patient efforts of these humble missionaries is one of the most interesting bits of England's early annals. When ^thelfrith was defeated and slain in that last struggle to retain his kingdom, his sons found refuge among the Picts of Scotland. Oswald, the second of these lads, had been received at lona, and there had caught the vision of a nobler life than any his kinsfolk had known. He came back now to his native Bernicia a Christian, and when at Hefenfelth he had scattered the British under Csedwalla, and had established himself firmly on his throne, he turned his thought to the evangelization of his people. Very naturally he decided to ask help of these same holy men who had so patiently taught him the way of truth when he came an exile among them. His request was quickly granted by the disciples of the great Columba, but before many months had passed, the monk who was sent by them was back again in his island home, declaring it impossible to teach so ungovernable a peo- ple the truths of Christianity. But the spirit of the great missionary who had founded their house was yet strong among these Celtic brethren, and many must have listened very sorrowfully to the disheartening re- port of their first foreign missionary. Their neigh- bours, the Picts, they had come in a measure to under- stand, and the history of lona up to that time had been the story of continual strife with superstition, but con- cerning these strangers from beyond the seas who AIDAN AND CUTHBERT 123 spoke another tongue and worshipped other gods they knew but little. So they debated long and earnestly what course to pursue, and whether it were wise to send another missionary to these unresponsive English. The problem was solved at last by one of their number who, after listening to the discussion quietly for some time, rose and spoke with the tolerant and tactful spirit which in all time must characterize the successful win- ner of souls. " Brother," he said, " it seemeth to me that thou hast been unduly hard upon these untaught hearers, and hast not given them first, according to the Apostle's precept, the milk of less solid doctrine until, gradually nurtured on -the Word of God, they should have strength enough to digest the more perfect lessons." The debate ended with these words of the gentle Aidan, for all agreed that he should take up the work of the returned bishop, if mayhap, by patience and tact, he might win those whom more forceful methods had failed to reach. So they commissioned him to plant a mission in Northumbria, consecrating him bishop of all that region, and sent him out to his new labours, accompanied by a small band of fellow-workers. Over against the king's capital of Bamborough, Aidan built his island monastery, a group of simple, rude structures, provided with only the bare necessities of life, and surrounded by a little plot of ground, which these labourers tilled for their own livelihood. For, as we have already intimated, it was a fixed principle of the northern missionaries to take nothing from those among whom they laboured, but by a life of self- denial to prove to these half-credulous folk that they had come among them with no other purpose than to do them good. And grandly did they succeed in their 124* GLORY OF THE NORTH COUNTRY purpose. From planting and sowing and reaping in their island home where, besides, they taught the Eng- lish youth whom they received among them and trained to return as labourers to their own people, they went out on long journeys among the hills and valleys of Bernicia and Deira, preaching the word of life alike to rich and poor, noble and peasant. Let us try to imagine one of these journeys. Aidan and a single companion are starting out from Lindis- farne on foot, speaking little to each other, but some- times breaking the solitude of their meditation by im- pressively repeating the grand old Psalms which they know by heart. Now they are attracted by a serf labouring by the wayside, and these servants of the Christ " Who followed the paths through the mountains To eat at the people's tryst," turn aside to tell the wretched man of a freedom which God can give to the soul. Again, in some rude home where yet love reigns, a sick child is comforted and soothed with the few simple remedies which these mis- sionaries know, and the hearts of the parents are thus opened to the message which the holy men of God bring them before they leave the poor hut. Fording streams and travelling steep paths, they come at length to a little wattled church, where no services have been held for weeks or months, and there they preach to a congregation filling every inch of space. How eagerly do these people listen to the simple words which they can understand and which will gradually transform their lives. Many new converts believe and are bap- tized in the neighbouring stream, among them per- haps some nobleman, who entertains these simple- AIDAN AND CUTHBERT 125 hearted missionaries in his hall and at their solicitation grants a slave lad freedom that he may go back with them to Lindisfarne and become a missionary labourer, after his years of training are over. And then, still on foot and without other reward for their services than the joy that comes from ministering to needy souls in their Master's name, these self-denying mis- sionaries return to study and teaching and humble labour on Holy Isle. No sovereign was ever more zealous for the religious welfare of his people than was King Oswald. The Venerable Bede, himself a Northumbrian, writing less than a hundred years after these events took place, thus describes the work of Oswald and Aidan : " The king also humbly and willingly in all things giving ear to his admonitions, industriously applied himself to build up and extend the Church of Christ in his kingdom; wherein, when the bishop, who was not perfectly skilled in the English tongue, preached the Gospel, it was a fair sight to see the king himself interpreting the Word of God to his ealdormen and thegns,' for he had thoroughly learned the language of the Scots during his long banishment. From that time many came daily into Britain from the country of the Scots, and with great devotion preached the Word to those provinces of the English over which King Oswald reigned." ^ But heathenism was not yet dead and the relentless Penda soon formed a new alliance with the Welsh and at Maserfelth, on August 5, 642, defeated and slew the good Northumbrian king. Again the kingdoms were divided, Oswiu, a brother of Oswald, reigning in Ber- 1 Bede III, 3- 2 This was during the earlier years of Aidan's ministry. 126 GLORY OF THE NORTH COUNTRY nicia and Oswini in Deira. Thirteen years longer the heathen Penda dominated Central England. A second great battle, fought between pagan and Christian Eng- land in 655, resulted in the death of the Mercian king and the end, for a time at least, of Mercian supremacy. Meanwhile Oswiu, king of the Bernicians, caused Oswini to be treacherously murdered, and joined Deira to Bernicia. The beauty of the Deiran king's charac- ter had been Aidan's joy and pride, and the aged mis- sionary survived his sovereign only a few days, passing to his reward on August 31, 651. Bede's testimony to Aidan's character is of special weight, because he stood so near the great missionary in point of time and, as an ardent adherent of the Roman ritual, believed the Celtic church gravely in error. " I have written," he says, " concerning the charac- ter and works of the aforesaid Aidan, in no way com- mending or approving his lack of wisdom with regard to the observance of Easter; nay, heartily detesting it; but, like an impartial historian, unreservedly relating what was done by or through him, and commending such things as are praiseworthy in his actions, to wit, his love of peace and charity; of continence and hu- mility; his mind superior to anger and avarice, and despising pride and vainglory; his industry in keeping and teaching the Divine commandments, his power of study and keeping vigil; his priestly authority in re- proving the haughty and powerful, and at the same time his tenderness in comforting the afflicted and re- lieving and defending the poor. To be brief, so far as I have learned from those that knew him, he took care to neglect none of those things which he found in the gospels and the writings of apostles and prophets. AIDAN AND CUTHBERT 127 but to the utmost of his power endeavoured to fulfil them all in his deeds." ^ Eleven centuries later another North Country writer repeated in even stronger phrase the worth of the great missionary. " In the simple, wise, sympathetic, large-hearted, saintly Aidan, to whom Northumbria owes its conver- sion, we have an evangelist of the purest and noblest t5^pe. Hardly a single incident is recorded of him, which we could wish untrue; and there are very few Christian saints and heroes in any age, of whom so much can be said." ^ Meanwhile, on the Scottish hills of Lammermuir, an imaginative shepherd lad was learning, as Patricius had learned, in his lonely watches in Ireland, to hear the call of God in the night wind that swept the soli- tary heights and to read His word in the stars which nightly looked down upon him and his sleeping flocks. He had been a merry lad in his childhood's home in Wrangholm, delighting in all the outdoor sports of that early time and developing a splendid physical strength for his long life of hardship. But the mys- tery of the hills gradually had its way with Cuthbert, and little by little he came to live with dreams and visions, but with visions so beautiful and dreams so ideal that his life has been remembered all the cen- turies since with love and reverence throughout the North Country. One of these visions led Cuthbert to dedicate his life to the service of God. It was at the time of Aidan's death that the lonely watcher on the hills beheld a iBede III, 17. 2 Lightfoot, " Leaders in the Northern Church." 128 GLORY OF THE NORTH COUNTRY shower of falling stars sinking into the sea, and, learn- ing soon afterward of the good man's passing, inter- preted this strange glory as the descent of angels sent to bear the soul of Aidan heavenward. So great an impression was made upon the shepherd youth that he left his calling and entered the monastery of Mailros or Melrose, which stood perhaps a mile distant from the beautiful ruins which attract the traveller to the modern town. When his education was completed, Cuthbert re- mained in the monastery as a teacher. But his heart was touched by the ignorance and sinfulness of a peo- ple not far removed from their old heathen life, and often he visited the little villages round about, teaching and preaching. So gentle and sincere he was that he exercised a wonderful influence over his hearers, who, at his bidding, gave up their practice of spells and in- cantations and, above all, renounced their evil lives, won by him to the beauty of righteousness. Often, too, he made long journeys among the remote places of the mountains, where no one else had courage to penetrate, and healed and sympathized and preached and baptized. How he must have been beloved by this simple folk, so ready to yield to the kindly and wise ministrations of one whom they quickly recognized as a true friend. Forbidding and unapproachable they may have seemed to some who had attempted their conversion. To Cuthbert, who sought them because he really cared, they were as clay in the hands of the potter. Other duties, however, awaited the monk. Eata, Abbot of Mailros, who had been instructed by Aidan on Lindisfarne, was called in 660 to establish a Chris- tian school at Ripon, in what is now the West Riding w « < w O « w AIDAN AND CUTHBERT 129 of Yorkshire. Cuthbert's intense devotion to mission- ary efforts in the home field led his superior to choose him as a companion in his new undertaking. The dif- ferences between the English and Celtic churches be- coming more pronounced, Abbot Eata was deprived of his monastery and, with Cuthbert, returned to Mailros. Not long after, however, a settlement being brought about by the Synod at Whitby, Eata was called to a new field of usefulness at Lindisfarne. As prior of the monastery of Aidan's foundation, Cuthbert con- tinued the missionary work he had loved at ]Mailros. Over dreary wastes of moorland, by devious streams, among solitary mountain fastnesses, the unwearying missionary carried his simple gospel message to a peo- ple whose thoughts and ways he understood, because he had been one of them. " His patience, his humor- ous good sense, the sweetness of his look," says an English historian,^ " told for him, and not less the vigorous frame which fitted the peasant-preacher for the hard life he had chosen." To his strength of body and the simple intensity of his faith he added the poetic temperament which we have already noted in his spiritual interpretation of the phenomena of nature. " At one time," we are told, " a snowstorm drove his boat on the coast of Fife. ' The snow closes the road along the shore,' mourned his comrade, ' the storm bars our way over sea.' ' There is still the way of heaven that lies open,' said Cuthbert." As the years wore on, the love of solitude and meditation more and more took possession of the saintly missionary, and at last discord among the members of the community at Lindisfarne, touching matters of faith and ritual, and his own longing for ij. R. Green, "The Making of England." 130 GLORY OF THE NORTH COUNTRY a hermit's life, led Cuthbert to withdraw to a barren island not far distant from Holy Isle, where he dwelt alone for many years, in a rude cell shut in by a mound so high that he could see nothing but the heavens above him. To understand this love of isolation in one of such splendid missionary achievement we must think ourselves back into an age as far removed from our own in outward condition and in outlook upon life as the east is from the west, an age whose brutality sickened the Christian monk and made him perhaps look too much toward the heavenly country, even as we of to-day sometimes think of it too little. In 685 Cuthbert was recalled from his retreat on Fame Isle and compelled to accept the bishopric of Lindisfarne, which he held for two years. Bede says of him that " he first showed in his own life what he taught others to do," and that " he thought it stood in the stead of prayer to afford the weak brethren the help of his exhortation, knowing that He who said, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,' said likewise, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour.' " At the end of these two years the aged missionary returned to Fame, knowing that his end was near. Here he died on the twentieth of March, 687, and was buried in the church at Lindisfarne, from which his body was removed at the coming of the Danes, to Chester-le-Street, and later to the site of the present Durham. In this quiet " hill-fortress," apart from the surging tides of human life, in the solemn stillness he so much loved, the great missionary-bishop sleeps his last sleep, while day by day his message is proclaimed in every hamlet and village of all the North Country where he lived and laboured. < o O W « O I J XII WHOM THE BRITON HONOURS England's Lesser Apostles " The choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn Of miserable aims that end with self." — George Eliot. WHERE, in the very heart of old London, rises the gentle eminence of Ludgate Hill, crowned by that noble monument of Sir Christopher Wren's genius, the cathedral of St. Paul, the second Christian mission in England was estab- lished. London was already an historic town when Mellitus came from Canterbury to preach the glad tidings of redemption through Christ to our pagan ancestors. Before the beginning of the Christian era in all proba- bility a British town or village crowned the heights overlooking the Thames, or at least a fortified retreat in time of war existed there. Under Roman influ- ence Londinium grew rapidly, and for nearly four centuries occupied a position of dignity as one of the important provincial cities of the Empire. Its situa- tion in time attracted the Teutonic invaders from across the sea, who erected their rude dwellings by 131 132 WHOM THE BRITON HONOURS the side of the stately ruins from which Roman and Romanized Celt had fled at the coming of the ma- rauder. Let us try to see the city as it would appear to Bishop Mellitus, newly come from Rome to aid Au- gustine in extending his work beyond the boundaries of ^thelberht's territory, when, in the year 604, the Roman missionary approached this East Saxon me- tropolis, of which Bede could write a century later that it had become " the mart of many nations resort- ing to it by sea and land." The ruins of Roman London still remained, brick buildings, massive and noble in their day, but now showing the result of siege and the distintegrating effects of two hundred years of neglect. From that part of the river shore now fortified by London Tower the old walls swept northward by the Minories and Houndsditch and turning westward, came again to the Thames by Lud- gate, enclosing one of the largest cities then existing in Britain. Many of the villas outside the walls were doubtless still standing, while contrasting strongly with this massive masoniT', were the low wooden buildings of the usurper, who himself cared little for the magnificence of Roman palace and basilica. To bring Rome's second great gift — a gift far greater and grander than her military and commercial power had been — came this man, whose foot had trodden the pavements of the Eternal City, and who had ex- iled himself from her still alluring grandeur through love for the Christ. Mellitus, as we have already seen, was one of the assistants whom Pope Gregory had sent Augustine seven years after the founding of the Canterbury mission. Another of these labourers, Justus, at ENGLAND'S LESSER APOSTLES 133 nearly the same time built a church a few miles west of Canterbury at Dorubrevis or Rochester, but the mission begun by Mellitus in London was the first extension of Augustine's work outside ^thelberht's immediate domains. Even this establishment was made under Kentish influence and protection, for the king of the East Saxons, Sseberct, was the son of Sledda and of ^thelberht's sister Ricula, and ruled Essex only as under-king. It was at ^thelberht's command that the East Saxon king received Mellitus and his helpers, and it was ^Ethelberht with whom Bede credits the building of the first church on Lud- gate Hill. Though the Roman bishop preached among this pagan folk for twelve years, he does not seem to have made a lasting impression upon his warlike hearers. Sseberct was converted, it is true, but his family remained unmoved by Christian teaching, and by their opposition at last compelled Mellitus to return to Kent. Mellitus later became Archbishop of Canterbury, but he did not return to London, and the East Saxon mission was not re- opened until the preaching of Cedd in 653. This second labourer in Essex was one of four brothers, all missionaries, who were of Northum- brian ancestry and trained in the Scottish schools of the north. Of these Ceadda, or St. Chad, having studied under Aidan and later in Ireland, became the Apostle of the Mercians, C^lin and Cynibill were faithful ministers of the Word in their native prov- ince of Northumbria, while Cedd preached in both Mid-Anglia and Essex. Two years before the death of Penda, his son Peada sought a daughter of Oswiu in marriage, and, being refused on account of his faith, offered himself 134^ WHOM THE BRITON HONOURS for instruction in the Christian religion, witH the result that he declared his intention of becoming a Christian, whether or not he obtained the hand of the Princess Alchfled. His baptism and marriage oc- curred that same year of 653, and, with four mis- sionaries, among whom was Cedd, the Mercian prince returned to Mid-Anglia, which he ruled as under-king. For the first time the gospel was preached freely and effectively among the people of Central England. Strange to say. King Penda did not object to his son's efforts for the conversion of his people. He had struggled for political supremacy and so had gathered about him in the years since Nor- thumbria's conversion those pagan forces which were hostile to the power of the northern kings. To this desire for power he would seem to have added a hatred of insincerity which caused him to despise " those whom he perceived to be without the works of faith, when they had once received the faith of Christ, saying that they were contemptible who scorned to obey the God in whom they trusted." Perhaps, too, the years had wrought changes with Penda, and very surely he found in these northern missionaries men in whose consecration he could believe. We would like to know whether the longing ever came to Penda to make personal trial of a faith that had wrought such changes in the neighbouring kingdoms, but if the call to Christian service ever came to the stubborn old pagan, he would seem to have turned to it a deaf ear. But to return to Cedd. On a visit to the north the king of Essex had been won to Christianity by his overlord Oswiu, who reasoned with him long and earnestly, seeking to prove the folly of representing ENGLAND'S LESSER APOSTLES 135 the Giver of all life by inanimate wood or stone. After Sigbert's conversion and return to Essex, Oswiu transferred Cedd from his labours in Mid- Anglia to Essex, sending with him two assistants. So, after forty years of darkness, the gospel came once more to the East Saxons, who for eleven years listened willingly on the whole to the preaching of the great-hearted Northumbrian. Some of the gesiths, however, resented the missionary's attempts to reform the moral standard of the court, and mur- dered the good Sigbert for personal reasons and be- cause " he was too apt to spare his enemies, and calmly forgave them the wrongs they had done him." Yet the missionary-bishop was granted the joy of bap- tizing the successor of the murdered king, and con- tinued his labours in peace until his death in 664. The year following the death of Cedd a pestilence swept over England, which many of the new converts regarded as a punishment sent by their fathers' gods for apostasy. In Essex, where paganism had so re- cently held sway, the faith of the Christians was se- verely tested. One of the two kings ruling the prov- ince openly renounced Christianity and, following in the steps of their ruler, the people, in a frenzy of fear and remorse, drove away the ministers of the faith, closed the churches, and resorted to all manner of charms and incantations to stay the ravages of the dread disease. Help came at last from the Mercian king Wulfhere, who sent one Jaruman to recall Essex to the faith. Undaunted by plague or pagan hos- tility, the good bishop travelled throughout the length and breadth of the country, pleading and exhorting so effectively that king and people repented their sin and returned to the Lord. 136 WHOM THE BRITON HONOURS East Anglia owed its final conversion to a Burgun- dian missionary named Felix. In another chapter we have told of the conversion of Rasdwald's son Earpwald, and the martyrdom which he suffered at the hands of his heathen thegns. For three years thereafter there was no Christian preaching in the kingdom, and the scattered and fearful believers must have welcomed the coming of the Christian king Sig- bert with great joy, Sigbert, who was a brother of Earpwald, had accepted Christianity during a long exile on the Continent, and now became a strong sup- porter of the new missionary's efforts for the evan- gelization of East Anglia. Bede's record of the life and labours of Felix is striking in its simplicity. We read that during his seventeen years of service " he reaped a great harvest of believers, delivering all that province (according to the inner signification of his name) from long iniquity and unhappiness, and bringing it to the faith and works of righteousness, and the gifts of everlasting happiness." Another continental missionary who came to Eng- land with the gospel message was Birinus, the apostle of Wessex. There was at this time considerable commercial intercourse between the English kingdoms and Italy, and doubtless Birinus first became inter- ested in the far-away island through Anglo-Saxon sailors in the Genoese port, where he was later con- secrated to a life of missionary activity. The Italian bishop came to England purposing to penetrate into regions as yet untouched by the gospel, but, finding the Gewissse or West Saxons still pagan, he decided to remain among them. Like the other labourers in England, Birinus was happy in first winning the king of the province, Cynegils, and, with his help, worked ENGLAND'S LESSER APOSTLES 137 a won'derful transformation in Wessex. He died December 3, 650, three years after the passing of East Angha's beloved apostle. The name of the beautiful Gothic cathedral in Lich- field and a seventh or eighth century copy of the Gos- pels in the Saxon tongue, still preserved in the old church, form a connecting link between the humble apostle of the Mercians, St. Chad of beautiful life and poetic legend, and our own oftentimes more prosaic Christianity. St. Chad, then known as Ceadda, had learned the true missionary spirit from his teacher, the noble Aidan. With the scholastic temper which characterized so many of Northum- bria's later sons, giving the world a Bede, an Egbert, and an Alcuin, Ceadda resolved to obtain what learn- ing his day afforded. Ireland was then the goal of the scholar, and for some years, how long we do not know, Ceadda studied in the schools which the preach- ing of Patricius had made possible. He was conse- crated Bishop of York when that see was made vacant by Wilfrid's continued absence. After the Synod at Whitby, Theodore of Tarsus was sent to England to organize, according to Roman methods, the splen- did beginnings which Christian labourers had made in the island. Finding Ceadda's consecration irregular because performed by British bishops, Theodore an- nulled the rite. The spirit in which Ceadda received this act is wonderfully suggestive of the character of his Christian life. " If you know that I have not duly received episco- pal ordination, I willingly resign the office, for I never thought myself worthy of it; but, though unworthy, for obedience sake, I submitted when bidden to un- dertake it." 138 WHOM THE BRITON HONOURS And these words from one of the most honoured characters in early history. Needless to say, Ceadda was soon after consecrated according to Roman form and, a little later, given the see of Mercia. Here, as in Northumbria, he la- boured untiringly for the good of those whose spir- itual guide he was. In the latter kingdom he had been accustomed to make long journeys on foot, and it is related that the great Archbishop himself once lifted Ceadda on horseback when, in his humility, the missionary had refused to ride. He preached the gospel " in towns, the open country, cottages, vil- lages, and castles," winning the devotion of all classes of people. He trembled with awe before wind and tempest as the august warning of Him who had made heaven and earth. Near the church at Lichfield he built a little oratory, where he was accustomed to withdraw, when duty permitted, for study of the Word and prayer. In this manner he spent two years and a half, when, another great pestilence visit- ing the land, Ceadda was called into his Lord's pres- ence. There remains to tell of the conversion of the South Saxons, the last of the early English to yield to the influences of Christianity. The history of Sussex includes the landing of the first Saxon invaders under ^lla at Selsey and the siege of Anderida, where not one Briton was left alive by the pagan from across the seas. But beyond the Roman fortress stretched the desolate Romney marshes, and away to the north a dense, primeval forest, the Andred's weald, barred the Saxon's way to greater conquest. So the little kingdom on the Channel remained outside the rising tide of civilization for a full two hundred years, and '4 - t ■>- ■■■'' ,- .i ( .; e^^' %^^#\ ■v% 3%, '3^^ -'fHan O Q < O O o w w ENGLAND'S LESSER APOSTLES 139 when, in the latter part of the seventh century, a mis- sionary by chance came among them, the South Saxons were still living among almost primitive con- ditions. It was in the year 68i that Wilfrid of York, driven from his bishopric and afterward from his refuge in Mercia, began preaching among this southern folk, whom, with his peculiar evangelistic ability, he won as a whole from heathenism. Fifteen years earlier, on Wilfrid's return from Rome, his vessel had been driven on the coast of Sussex, among a hostile people. A strange, weird picture it is that the historian has left of this incident. The fantastic figure of a heathen priest chanting spells and incantations stands outlined against the sky on a wild cliff, while wreckers of the coast are ready to dash upon the men from the stranded ship and put them to death. One of the crew hurls a stone at the enchanter, precipitat- ing the fury of his tribesmen, who are only prevented by the returning tide from destroying one who will return to them as a deliverer from famine and spir- itual darkness. When Wilfrid came a second time among the South Saxons, he found them suffering from the effects of a three years' famine and drought. So hopeless had this ignorant folk become that, banding themselves together in lines of forty or fifty, they would leap from the headlands into the sea. But the exiled bishop was equal to the emergency, and while he told them of the heavenly country, he taught them to weave together the small eel-nets, their only possession, and with these venture out into the rivers and bays for a more plentiful harvest of fish.^ Wilfrid re- * A beginning of industrial missions? 140 WHOM THE BRITON HONOURS mained among the South Saxons for five years, dur- ing which time he sent assistant missionaries to min- ister to the Jutes on the Isle of Wight. Thus the last strongholds of pagan England were stormed and taken, and a new period began, a period of organiza- tion and instruction, of development in Christian edu- cation and in the arts of peaceful and ordered living, until at last, through the influences set at work by the introduction of Christianity, the peoples so long glancing askance at one another across hostile boun- daries became one folk and, joining hands with a kindred people ^ of like precious faith, began to- gether to climb the long upward slope which has led to such a vision of moral and spiritual possibility as the Briton to-day possesses. And we who look back to Saxon days as of a truth our own rejoice in adding our word of praise to those noble pioneer missionaries whose word and life gave to us, too, a Christian heritage. ^The Normans. XIII LABOURERS IN FRIESLAND Amandus, Eligius, Wilfrid, Willibrord, LiUDGER, AND WiLLEHAD " Fling out the banner : let it float Skyward and seaward, high and wide ; The sun that lights its shining folds, The cross on which the Saviour died." — George W. Doane. " 4 S long as the wind blows out of the clouds A% and the world stands, the Frisians shall be free." Thus ran the legend inscribed upon the statute-book of the northernmost tribe inhabiting the forests and dunes of the Netherlands. From their first appearance in history their record is one of struggle against mightier powers to retain ances- tral independence. Near kinsmen of the Angles and Saxons, they possessed the same sturdy qualities as the conquerors of Britain. It is not surprising, therefore, to find them for many years resisting all efforts of the missionaries sent among them to win them to the Christian faith, and clinging tena- ciously to the worship of gods in whose name their ancient heroes had fought and conquered. A new religion and new customs threatened the very founda- tions of the old free life, and priests and leaders and people set themselves like flint against the introduc- tion of the Christian Church. 141 142 LABOURERS IN FRIESLAND One of the earliest missionary labourers in the Netherlands was Amandus, for some years Bishop of Trajectum, the modern Utrecht. Born in Acquitaine and trained on a lonely island off the Gallic coast and later at Bourges, he returned from a pilgrimage to Rome to labour for the conversion of the pagan tribes about Tournai on the Schelde. Meeting with little success, he besought Dagobert, king of the Austrasians, to force upon these tribes the Christian faith. As might have been expected, the result was a widespread revolt, for, needless to say, violence never yet won converts to the Gospel of Peace and Goodwill. After a mission to the Slavic tribes of the Danube, Amandus returned to the Netherlands and, by milder methods, gained scattered converts among the pagan tribes to the north of his diocese, meanwhile establishing Christian schools throughout the modern Belgium. A more attractive character is the gentle St. Eloy, or Eligius. He had everything to draw him away from the practice of a true religious belief. By birth belonging to a noble family,^ his rank, together with his skill as a goldsmith, early brought him to the attention of the Austrasian king. Surrounded by the corrupt influences of the Prankish court, he yet lived a simple, upright life, " by his integrity and trust- worthiness winning the particular esteem of King Clotaire II." ^ Always while fashioning the delicate tracery with which he adorned the churches of his day, he kept open before him a copy of the Bible and, by its pure teachings, held himself above the level of the life about him. He earned vast sums by the prac- 1 Born near Limoges in 588. 2 Neander, Vol. Ill, p. 41. Di Banco STATUE OF ST. ELIGIUS AMANDUS, ELIGIUS, WILFRID 143 tice of his profession, but spent it all in various forms of charity, especially in the ransom of slaves. While still a layman the purity of his life and his wisdom and learning gained for him the admiration of men even so far as Italy and Spain. In 641, twenty-six years after the death of Columbanus, and while Aidan was still labouring in Northumbria, Eligius was made Bishop of Vermandois, Tournai, and Noyon. For eighteen years he was an efficient pastor and spiritual leader, aiming to make the Christian profession the expression of a changed life. To his ministers and people he was wont to say, " It is not enough that you have taken upon you the Christian name, if you do not the works of a Christian. The Christian name is profitable only to him who constantly treasures Christ's precepts in his heart and expresses them in his life." It was during this period that his mis- sionary journeys were undertaken. Beyond the boundaries of his diocese he carried the gospel mes- sage to the still pagan tribes of the north, not always kindly received, sometimes endangering his life. Thus, for almost the first time, was the Christian re- ligion preached in Friesland. After Amandus and Eligius came Wilfrid of York. In 678, on his second journey to Rome to appeal to the leaders of the church for the possession of his diocese, Wilfrid was shipwrecked on the shores of Friesland and, touched by the need of this heathen folk, he forgot for a time his own troubles and ap- pealed to their king, Aldgils, for permission to preach the Word to his subjects. Aldgils was a far more liberal man than his successor, Radbod, and readily granted his request. Besides, there was as yet no question of politics involved. Partly because of their 144 LABOURERS IN FRIESLAND king's attitude, partly, we may be sure, as a result of the missionary's tact, manifested in his dealings with the South Saxons, the Northumbrian bishop soon found himself addressing large audiences of chief- tains and warriors, women and children, many of whom believed and were baptized. News of these successes coming to the Mayor of the Palace in Neustria, Ebroin sent messengers to King Aldgils, stirring him up to the assassination of the missionary, then a guest at the Frisian court. It was a winter evening when the letter was brought to the king, and Wilfrid and Aldgils sat together in the royal hall. The noble Frisian read Ebroin's warning and then, because he believed in the sincerity of the man whom he had befriended, dropped the letter quietly into the flames. All that winter Wilfrid remained among the Frisians, labouring disinterestedly to bring them to an acceptance of the Christian faith, but in the spring he was forced to continue his journey and, with none to further the work begun by the Northumbrian bishop, the immediate results of his labours were soon swallowed up in the surrounding paganism. Still Wilfrid's visit to Frisia served to open the hearts of the home churches to the need of their heathen kinsmen on the farther shores of the North Sea. Ten years later Egbert, who had gone to Ire- land with Ceadda in his youth and had remained in voluntary exile there, determined to undertake a mis- sion in Friesland, but was turned aside from his pur- pose by a vision and by a storm destroying the ship in which he was to sail for the Continent. Among the companions whom he had chosen for the journey was an English monk named Wictbert, who took up the work laid down by his superior, labouring among WILLIBRORD 145 the Frisians for two years without success. Their king, xA-ldgils, was dead, and his successor, Radbod, was bitterly hostile to the new faith. Perhaps, too, Wictbert lacked the persuasive power of the North- umbrian prelate. At all events, according to Bede, " he reaped no fruit of all his great labour among his barbarous hearers," and returned home with faith in missionary enterprise shattered. It is significant, however, that these events did not discourage the home church. Upon Wictbert's re- turn, new plans were laid for the evangelization of the Netherlands, and in 690 ^ a second company, also com- posed of twelve labourers, was sent out by Bishop Egbert. The leader of these missionaries was Willi- brord, or Wilbrord, who had lived from infancy in Wilfrid's monastery of Ripon in the West Riding of Yorkshire. At the age of twenty he had gone to Ire- land for study and, after twelve years spent in satis- faction of his love of learning, heard the divine call to a life of ser^dce for humanity. In the meantime, Pepin of Heristal, father of Charles Martel, had won West Frisia from Duke Radbod, and, to secure his large boundaries, had erected forts at Utrecht and Dore- stad. With Prankish authority to keep the west coast and its islands in a state of peace, Willibrord found his work opening auspiciously. In 696 he was consecrated Archbishop of the Frisians in the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere at Rome. Utrecht, called in the Frisian tongue Wiltaberg, and in the Roman Trajectum, was chosen for the seat of the new see, and from this city the missionary's later work was directed. Willibrord's efforts in West Frisia were so successful that he has become known as the ^692? 146 LABOURERS IN FRIESLAND Apostle to the Frisians. In the eastern districts he encountered greater difficulties, for there Radbod, the heathen prince who had persecuted the church of Wilfrid's planting, still maintained his indepen- dence. On one occasion Willibrord undertook to carry the gospel message to the Jutlanders of the north. He was met with indifference, however, and even with hostility, and sailed for home at last with thirty lads, whom he had purchased during his stay in the north- ern province. But the ships of that day were far too rude to render travel safe, and Willibrord was driven upon the red sandstone cliffs of Heligoland. On this little triangular island, sacred to an ancient goddess, Fosite, Willibrord, perhaps in proof of the impotency of the island's protectress, baptized his boy converts in a spring sacred to the heathen deity. The islanders were enraged by this sacrilege, and by the slaughter of sacred cattle, and fell upon the shipwrecked men, making them prisoners, and sacrificing one of their number to the jealous goddess. Through the influ- ence of Radbod, the others were finally returned to Frisia in safety. With the death of Duke Radbod in 719, and the annexation of East Frisia to the kingdom of the Franks, the opportunities for missionary effort were greatly enlarged, though the widespread acceptance of the Christian faith which followed under the influence of political leaders was very likely more nominal than real. Still the Frisians had been brought sufficiently in contact with Christianity during the years of Willi- brord's preaching to discover somewhat of its teach- ings, and even Radbod, it will be remembered, had advanced from persecution to a tolerant and even LIUDGER 147 sympathetic treatment of the Christian missionaries from Britain. After Radbod's death WilHbrord was joined by a monk from Devonshire, who was destined to become in later years the Apostle of Germany. During the three years from 719 to 722 Winfrid, better known as Boniface, laboured as Willibrord's assistant with such marked success that the weary Bishop would gladly have appointed him his successor in the direc- tion of the Friesland missions. But Boniface had already heard the longing cry of the dwellers among the forest-clad hills of Germany and, realizing that there were labourers ready to take up the work in Frisia, left Utrecht to plunge into the wilds of Hesse and Thuringia. Seventeen years longer Willibrord laboured in the Netherlands, putting the work so auspiciously begun upon a firm basis. Death came at last in the year of our Lord 739, when the veteran missionary had reached the advanced age of eighty- one years. Among the later missionaries to the Frisians should be mentioned Liudger and Willehad, who laboured in the northern districts where, as we shall see later, Boniface was to lay down his life for his Master's sake. In these remote regions paganism lingered on long after Willibrord had brought the principal parts of Frisia under the influences of the gospel. For the old faiths were too deeply rooted in the hearts of this sturdy folk, and the hope of a continuance of their independence too great, for the ready accep- tance of a religion brought to them by their con- querors. While Radbod was still reigning in East Frisia, among his judges was one Wursing, a just man, who 148 LABOURERS IN FRIESLAND , showed the work of the Law written in his heart and was ever reaching out after the deeper mysteries of the Teutonic faith, in which he had been reared. His impartial administration of justice at last became hateful to the Frisian duke, and Wursing was forced to flee to the kingdom of the Franks, where he found the peace for which he had been seeking. He became a devout follower of the Christ, bringing his whole family with him into the church. On his return to Frisia, he was a pillar of strength to Willibrord in his struggle with the dying heathenism. Liudger was a descendant of Wursing, and seems to have possessed a like simple faith. Like so many of those early mis- sionaries, Liudger was first of all a scholar, and from his school in Utrecht went to York to study under Alcuin. He took care to bring with him on his return a goodly store of books, in which his soul delighted, and we may be sure that he was none the less fitted for his w^ork among a rude but sturdy people because he cared for the life of the mind as well as the life of the soul. When his labours in North Frisia were in- terrupted by the revolt of Wittekind and the revival of paganism, Liudger journeyed to Rome, but on the re-establishment of peace and the baptism of the Saxon chieftain, the dauntless missionary was back again at the scene of his earlier labours, this time extending his mission to the island on which Willi- brord's companion had been sacrificed to the goddess Fosite. Here Liudger preached with so persuasive a power that prince and people renounced their idols and together accepted Christianity. Active to the last, he preached twice on the Sunday preceding his death, which occurred on the twenty-sixth of March, 809. WILLEHAD 149 Meanwhile a Northumbrian named Willehad was likewise labouring in North Frisia, beginning his mis- sion in the vicinity of Dokkum, where he succeeded in winning many converts to the faith. His later fields included Gronigen and Drenthe, in both of which he suffered persecution from the pagan populace, nar- rowly escaping death at Drenthe for having set fire to a heathen temple. Charles the Great appointed him missionary to the Saxons after their defeat and forced conversion. Here he founded the see of Bremen, dying at Blexam, on the Weser, in 789. "The lives of these holy men," says Professor Blok, " tell of their courage, self-sacrifice, and zealous labours amid rude dwellers in forests and morasses. Convents were everywhere founded, seminaries, as it were, for the education of new preachers of the gos- pel, who were to continue the work of their prede- cessors. . . . Heathen temples, rich in idols, cov- ered the land of the Frisians. They (the Frisians) and the unconverted Saxons often destroyed the new little wooden churches and murdered preachers. . . . Everything goes to show that the inhabitants of the country north of the mouth of the Rhine were extremely rude and uncivilized. In places like Tra- jectuni and Dorestad, however, a certain amount of luxury must have prevailed within the mostly wooden houses grouped around the wooden churches. This luxury was the result of the trade in Frisian cattle, horses, woven mantles, wines, wood, and grain from the upper Rhine. The Frisian merchants were seen in the markets of St. Denis, as well as of York, Bremen, Hamburg, and Schleswig. Agriculture must also have been considerably developed before the eighth 150 LABOURERS IN FRIESLAND century, judging from the numerous farms presented by the faithful to the monastic institutions." ^ Eight centuries later this little land, upon which the merciless sea had preyed so long, which had been so often the battle-ground of mightier powers, which, despite all, had never lost heart and never ceased to hope for a return of its lost liberty, for the sake of religious freedom set itself to oppose the wealth and military strength of Spain and of the Church, two well-nigh invincible powers. But the spirit of the ancient Frieslanders still animated the Dutch nation and as Willibrord and Liudger had declared to the worshippers of Odin the God whom they ignorantly worshipped, so when the faith they preached had been obscured in the worldliness of its priests, the vision of a purer worship was granted this little land and religious and political liberty secured. Brave little Holland, winner in the long conflict with the invading sea and the enslavers of the soul, may the future hold for thee greater because more peaceful victories, and may the Christ ever hold sway in the hearts of the descendants of the Frisians. 1 " History of the People of the Netherlands," Petrus Johannes Blok. XIV THE MONK OF NUTSCELLE WiNFRiD, Better Known as Boniface " The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them,— ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems ; in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication." —Bryant, ''Forest Hymn" " What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this set I forth unto you." AMONG the monks of the Abbey of Nutscelle or Netley, not far from the ancient Gwent- ^ ceaster/ there was in the year 715 a man of West Saxon family, whose intellectual power and practical qualities had made him already a marked personage in ecclesiastical circles. Born at Crediton, in what is now Devonshire, about 680, trained from the age of seven in the monastery of Exeter, whence he had come to Nutscelle when still a young man, more than once entrusted by his superiors and King Ine with important commissions requiring tact and sound judgment, the monk Winfrid, known in history as Boniface, Apostle to Germany, was in a fair way 1 Winchester. 151 152 THE MONK OF NUTSCELLE to rise to a position of influence in the English Church similar to that won and lost by the Northumbrian Wilfrid. Fifty years and more had gone by since the Synod of Whitby united the English Church in one form of faith and in matters religious made north and south of one mind. Not so in things political. The king- doms of Northumbria and Mercia and Wessex still watched each other suspiciously, and in turn grew strong or weak in their overlordship of the smaller principalities forming the Saxon Heptarchy. Mer- cia's acceptance of Christianity had increased her power, and under Wulfhere Central England attained to greater influence than ever Penda had won for it. After the death of this king the tides of power ebbed and flowed until Egbert united all England under his banner in 826. During the first years of the eighth century, King Ine of Wessex extended his dominions through southern England, defeating and driving back the Mercian forces in the very year in which our narrative opens. Christianity was by this time be- coming firmly established in the English kingdoms. Everywhere churches and schools were being built and a life of settled labour was more and more coming to be regarded as preferable to the chances of war- fare. In the little town of Brad ford-upon- Avon still stands a Saxon church of this period, erected by Ealdhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, who, to win the in- different to a Christian life, sang songs of praise in the open air to all who would listen. It was an age, too, of missionary zeal. The two Hewalds went out from the Saxons of Britain to the Old Saxons of Germany. Carrying the good news of salvation through a crucified and risen Saviour to the WINFRID, KNOWN AS BONIFACE 153 wild Frieslanders, went Willibrord of Northiimbria. Bishop Egbert, by whom WiUibrord was commis- sioned, was also a Northumbrian. The Friesland mission seems to have been watched with especial in- terest by the Enghsh church, and we may picture the rejoicing in the infant monastery on the Solent when one day travellers from across the sea brought news of victories won for the Christ on the lowland plains of Frisia. To one at least of that circle of eager listeners at Nutscelle the wonderful story of the great missionary hero brought conviction as well as interest, and not long thereafter Winfrid, the West Saxon, presented himself before his abbot as a volunteer for service in the Netherlands. His labours at this period were frustrated by the hostility of Duke Radbod, but in 718 Boniface again set out for the Continent, this time bearing credentials from Daniel of Winchester to Pope Gregory II., who appointed the Saxon monk to the great and unorganized field forming the present Germany. And so Boniface went forth to his great task, went forth to unite the little scattered mission stations planted everywhere in dark forest-covered Germany — by lakeside, in hidden valley, or on the river shore — under one church government, which had not yet developed those harmful features later to make neces- sary the work of a Luther; went forth to preach a pure gospel — albeit ritualism had taken so firm a hold upon the apostle's mind — to the still heathen folk of Thuringia and Hesse and Bavaria, and at last to die a martyr's death at the hands of the North Friesland- ers. In the land where Roman legions had met the invincible armies of free-born warriors and the sol- diers of Varus had been cut off by Hermann's men. 154 THE MONK OF NUTSCELLE where upon the grass-grown ruins of Roman cities missionaries from Ireland had planted lonely monas- teries and sought the conversion of their pagan neigh- bours, in a land of desolate stretches of virgin forest, where the wild beast kept his solitary lair and the loyal Teuton avenged with death his country's gods, Boniface began a period of missionary service extend- ing over more than thirty years, before the close of which he had seen Germany nominally a Christian country. From his interview with the Roman bishop Boni- face travelled northward in the spring days over the old Roman roads to the province of Thuringia, bor- dering the southern bank of the Elbe. Weary and footsore he must have been when he reached the great Thuringiawald and from some hilltop gazed out over the unending billows of pine and fir which followed the lines of upland and valley. Upon such a height you may stand to-day, breathing the spicy perfumes of the woodland and listening to the peasants' song, while, as from a Mount of Vision, you see the heroic figures of Thuringia's long history in the great scenes which have made this little province a shrine for pil- grims from every land. There march ranks of hel- meted soldiers, bearing in their midst the eagles of Imperial Rome, yet destined to be buffeted and beaten back by the blue-eyed giants in cloaks of bearskin, of whom the Emperor Titus said, " Their bodies are great, but their souls are greater." Black-robed trav- ellers, with pilgrim's staff and wallet and cases of parchments, thread these forest ways, bringing from the Isle of Saints the enthusiasm of the Celt for his new-found faith. Boniface comes and goes, leaving the land under the law of Rome. After him appears WINFRID, KNOWN AS BONIFACE 155 the mailclad knight, at whose word majestic castles raise their frowning walls above woodland river vales, clinging, like the seeker after prey, to the grey face of the weather-beaten precipice. A more tender light shines upon Hungary's saint in whose hands, say the legends, gifts for the poor were changed to roses to save her from the anger of her lord, the cruel Duke of Marburg. Towering above them all in mental and moral and spiritual strength looms the great-hearted Luther, whose lonely days in the Wartburg gave to the German people a key to life in that noble transla- tion of the Scriptures which soon found its way into every German home touched by the Reformation. As the past slips away, a vision of prosperous and happy communities, free on the whole to think and achieve and worship as they will, reveals anew what the knowledge of Jesus Christ may accomplish. Before Boniface, as he entered the gloomy shadows of the Thuringiawald twelve hundred years ago, how different a prospect opened. Everything was yet to be accomplished, at least so it would seem to this ad- herent of Roman supremacy. Despite the fact that Christianity had followed the Roman army in those later days of the Empire and that Celtic missionaries had laboured and died for the faith, Thuringia was still a pagan region and the Thuringians were besides hos- tile to Christianity as the faith of their Frankish con- querors. Yet from the beginning Boniface loved the land, and though on this first visit he was able to accomplish very little, after three years spent at the court of the Austrasian Mayor of the Palace and in the continuance of his interrupted labours in Frisia, he returned to Germany and again came to Thuringia, having passed through Hesse, where he baptized the 156 THE MONK OF NUTSCELLE princes, Detivig or Detdic and Dierolf, and founded a Christian school at Amoneburg. In 723 Boniface carried a report of his labours in person to Rome, and came back to his mission field regionary-bishop, with authority to organize the church in Germany to the end that greater and more effective work might be accomplished there. In zeal for the conversion and instruction of his Teutonic kinsmen, the Apostle of Germany was sec- ond to none. Many once baptized had lapsed into heathen practices, many others still clung to the old faith. By all gentle means Boniface sought to win both these classes; yet on occasion he could brave their anger, striking a blow at the very heart of their religion. Such was the dramatic incident at Geismar. Boniface had come back to Germany strong in the consciousness of papal sanction and the official sup- port of the Prankish king. Acting upon the counsel of his more sincere and enlightened converts, the Apostle let it be known that he intended to fell the sacred oak at Geismar. What a picture it must have been, the lonely hilltop, crowned by a gnarled and weatherbeaten giant of the forest, sole survivor of many brethren; surging about the sacred enclosure a threatening crowd of angry folk, — men, women, and children, — who have gathered to watch the wrath of the gods descend in swift punishment upon the doomed priest. But hold ! Stroke after stroke cuts deep into the sacred wood and yet no thunderbolt falls from heaven upon the offending missionary. And now the murmuring breath of the encircling forest grows into a mighty blast, and the oak, for centuries regarded with awe and veneration, falls at the feet of Boniface. With a swift revulsion of feeling, the WINFRID, KNOWN AS BONIFACE 15T great throng cries out that the God of the foreign priest is mightier than their own deities, and that He alone is worthy of their service. Before many years had gone by, the mission work so increased that Boniface sent to England for help- ers. His need, he wrote, was for men and women of missionary spirit whom he could appoint as bishops or place over monasteries and abbeys. He asks also for books, Gregory's "Acts and Sufferings of the Martyrs," Commentaries on St. Paul, and a volume of the Prophets in plain handwriting, for his sight is failing. Strong and earnest men and women, schol- arly and wise, offered themselves at once in response to the call of Boniface and, crossing to Germany, built up in Hesse and Thuringia and Bavaria a series of splendid schools, the influence of which upon the sturdy Teutons can hardly be overestimated. One of these establishments was the monastery of Fritzlar, succeeding the little oratory which Boniface had erected out of timber from the felled oak of Geismar. Over this later foundation he placed an Englishman from Dorset, St. Wictbert, who, on the thirteenth of August, is still honoured in the little Old World town set about by ancient walls and watch towers not far removed in their slender height and conical tops from the round towers of Ireland. Of the noble women who thus early entered the field of missionary activity, where to-day woman's faith and zeal and tact are accomplishing so much, should be mentioned the gentle Lioba, scholar, teacher, director of an important mission institute at Bischofs- heim, a strong and beautiful woman, the friend of Queen Hildegard and the counsellor of Boniface; Chunihild and her daughter Bertgith or Berathgid, 158 THE MONK OF NUTSCELLE who were missionaries in Thuringia; Tecla, abbess of Kitzingen; Chunitriid, a teacher in Bavaria; and Walpurga, a Sussex woman, with whom legend has wrought most curiously. Walpurga was a sister of Wunnibald, who laboured at Heidanheim, where, in the midst of the wildwood, he established a Christian school, consisting of a few humble dwellings of reeds and straw. Another brother, Willibald, after far wanderings, came to Eichstatt and was made Bishop of that diocese by his uncle Boniface, his labours there extending over a period of forty-five years. From teaching in Lioba's institution at Tauber Bischofsheim, Walpurga came to Wunnibald's school, was made abbess of the Bene- dictine nunnery, and at her brother's death became director of his foundation, ruling successfully both these institutions, from which were sent out many labourers trained at her hands for lives of missionary toil. Very different, we must remember, were those first mission stations from the rich and powerful abbeys of a later time. In their beginnings the monasteries of the British Isles, of France and Germany and the Netherlands, Celtic and Benedictine alike, were oases of peace in lands of discord. Among rude and ma- terialistic peoples, they stood for a higher life, for the culture of the mind and the soul, and on the prac- tical side for the development of the arts and the cultivation of the land. The members of these re- ligious communities were first of all missionaries and pastors, the spiritual guides of the people. But they were also intellectual leaders and teachers, and many of those early monasteries grew into schools of wide renown. Such was Boniface's foundation at Fulda, WINFRID, KNOWN AS BONIFACE 159 which became one of the great centres of mediseval learning. It was in the monasteries, too, that the various schools of mediaeval literature grew up. At Jarrow-on-Tyne lived one of the greatest historians of any age, the venerable Bede, and to the ancient abbey of Whitby belonged the Milton of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Others taught the art of building in stone. Everywhere they cleared the forests and built up model agricultural establishments, where the methods of farming were studied and taught. By lives of obedience and sacrifice, they taught the virtue of self- command so much needed in the early period of a people's development. Thus more than a thousand years ago missionary volunteers were winning Europe to a glorious future by very much the same methods used to-day on the mission fields of Asia and Africa. " The monks," says one historian,^ " introduced fruit- trees, flowers, vegetables, in addition to teaching and emancipating the serfs. Their monasteries were mis- sion stations which resembled ours in being dispen- saries for the sick, almshouses for the poor, and nurseries of learning." In later years Boniface extended his labours to Saxony and Bavaria. By 739 he had seen a hundred thousand converts baptized, great numbers of whom were doubtless still ignorant of the real meaning of the step they were taking. For the instruction of these new converts, Boniface laboured earnestly to found schools and churches in such numbers that the last vestiges of paganism should disappear. He him- self preached simple, practical sermons, and kept the Scriptures in the church service. He fearlessly de- nounced the laxity of life of the Frankish clergy, and 1 Livingston. 160 THE MONK OF NUTSCELLE more than once rebuked Rome for setting a bad exam- ple to the missionary churches — and this despite his great reverence for the Holy See. We quote from a sermon preached before the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. " We address you," he said, " not as the messengers of one from whom you can purchase ex- emption with money, but of one to whom you are bound by the blood he shed for you." Though shar- ing the Roman reverence for the Latin language as the language of the church ritual, he instructed his clergy to read the Epistles and Gospels in German and also to preach and to teach certain prayers in the native language. Boniface visited Rome a third time in 738. To England he was destined never to return, though to the last he carried on a correspondence with many men and women of influence in the religious and state life of his native land and followed its successes with interest and learned of its errors with sorrow. Boniface was now the foremost figure in Germany. He had accomplished a gigantic work in reforming the existing Prankish church, in converting whole dis- tricts of pagan worshippers, in organizing Chris- tianity throughout the length and breadth of the land, and everywhere providing places of worship for the people. For more than twenty years he had enjoyed a primate's dignity and authority. Yet in the midst of all this success and honour and responsibility, that longing for simple missionary tasks that had brought him across the Channel so many years before re- turned in ever increasing measure until, relinquishing the burdens which he felt that some one else might now take up, the venerable archbishop in 755 sailed down the Rhine to Utrecht, whence he travelled WINFRID, KNOWN AS BONIFACE 161 slowly along the marshlands bordering the Zuyder Zee into the wilds of North Frisia, where his last days were spent among a people still stubbornly pagan. The martyr's reward came to our missionary at Dokkum on Whitsunday of the year 755. With a little company of fifty men, he was to administer that day the rite of confirmation to a multitude of recent converts, whom he had sent to their homes after bap- tism. When the June sun rose over the forests of Dokkum, Boniface and his missionary helpers heard the sound of an approaching multitude and, hurrying from their tents to greet the returning Christians, found themselves facing, not the friendly faces of their converts, but the brandished spear and glittering battle-axe of hostile savages. His fellow-labourers would have fought for their safety, but Boniface did not permit it. " Let us not return evil for evil," he said. " The long-expected day has come, and the time of our de- parture is at hand. Strengthen ye yourselves in the Lord, and He will redeem your souls. Be not afraid of those who can only kill the body, but put all your trust in God, who will speedily give you an eternal reward, and an entrance into His heavenly king- dom." ^ When the missionaries were slain, the Frieslanders pillaged the mission, expecting to find great treasure of gold and silver. Discovering nothing but books, they scattered the precious volumes over marsh and woodland and went away in disgust. Some time afterward men from the South arrived on the scene of the great missionary's martyrdom, collected the lost iMaclear, "Apostles of Mediaeval Europe." 162 THE MONK OF NUTSCELLE manuscripts, and reverently bore the body of the apostle to his beloved monastery of Fulda, where he was buried with great honour. And to all time Boni- face the missionary will stand as a noble example of what love for the Christ and for those for whom He died may accomplish in one over whom the shadow of hmnan authority had cast that spell of power, which in later years should enchain the souls of men in a bitter bondage at last broken by another great Saxon, who in sincerity of belief and power of leadership and love for humanity was of a like order of mind with the Apostle of Germany. XV THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH Ansgar, Bishop of Hamburg The Challenge " I am the God Thor, " Thou art a God too, I am the War God, O Galilean ! I am the Thunderer ! And thus single-handed Here in my Northland, Unto the combat. My fastness and fortress, Gauntlet or Gospel, Reign I forever ! Here I defy thee !" The Answer " Stronger than steel " The dawn is not distant, Is the sword of the Spirit ; Nor is the night starless ; Swifter than arrows Love is eternal ! The light of the truth is, God is still God, and Greater than anger His faith shall not fail ua ; Is love, and subdueth ! Christ is eternal ! " — Longfellow, "Saga of King 01 af." THE morning of history was breaking over the Danish peninsula. For centuries event had succeeded event in the Northland, tribe had M^arred against tribe, migration had followed migra- tion, all unheeded by the rest of Europe. It was as if the dense seafogs that hover over the grey, tem- pestuous waters and settle heavily over town and coun- tryside, had wrapped these peoples in their embrace and shut them out from the view of civilization. Oc- casionally out of the mists heroic figures had issued, 163 164 THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH invincible in their strength, yet by no means unwilling to accept and profit by the higher knowledge of the peoples with whom their wanderings brought them in touch. Such were the sturdy folk who followed the coming of the " three keels " from Jutland to Britain, ^thelberht himself, throwing the gates of his king- dom wide open to Roman missionaries, was only a century and a half removed from the wild, cruel life of the Danish coasts, which at a later time were to flaunt the dusky raven banner throughout this same British isle and place their princes upon the English throne. The great king of the Franks, whose iron hand had united the Gauls by the western sea with the tribes of Eastern Europe in a vast confederacy, had gone forth to meet the great King, and for eight years his son, known to history as Louis the Pious, had held the Imperial sceptre. Charlemagne's dream of the conversion of the North was still a vision only, and in the disturbed state of the Scandinavian countries seemed little likely of speedy accomplishment. Yet among the desolate heaths of Jutland a king was struggling for his crown, and in the Prankish monas- tery of Corbie a monk was being trained, who, the one by his royal influence, the other by his consecrated devotion, should blaze a path for the entrance of a new civilization in northern lands. The king was Harald Klag, who in the year 822 appealed in person to the Emperor Louis for aid in driving the rival claimant from his throne ; the monk was one Ansgar. born not far from Amiens and from childhood trained in the monastery of Corbie. Perhaps because he saw in this political strife an opening for the accomplish- ment of his father's plans in the beginning of a Scan- ANSGAR, BISHOP OF HAMBURG 165 dinavian mission, Louis promised his help to the banished king. At least, the intervention of the Em- peror in the affairs of the Danish state opened the way for the first missionary work in Denmark, which was begun by Ebbo, Archbishop of Rheims, and a monk of noble birth named Halitgar. In the face of many difficulties these missionaries seem to have accomplished very little among the peo- ple, but Harald and his queen, together with some of the courtiers, came to Ingelheim, near Mainz, for bap- tism. There, in a palace built by Charlemagne and long a favourite residence of the Frankish emperors, Harald and his following were entertained by their benefactor, and the great hall with its pillars of beau- tiful marble and its Italian mosaics, resounded with the good cheer by which the hospitable emperor bound this still half-pagan prince to his cause. Louis himself became godfather to the Danish king at bap- tism, and arranged to send back with Harald other missionaries, who should instruct the Danes in the principles of the gospel and win new converts. We know that Harald was not enthusiastic over this mis- sion, giving it little attention until he learned that Hadelbod, Bishop of Cologne, was fitting out a splen- did ship for the conveyance of the missionaries to Den- mark, when suddenly the Danish prince became very anxious to join company with the monk. One cannot help wondering how much the hope of receiving aid from the Frankish emperor in regaining his kingdom had influenced Harald in his acceptance of Chris- tianity. But, whatever his motive may have been, the prince certainly became the instrument by which missionary enterprise was first undertaken in Den- mark. 166 THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH The monk chosen to undertake this mission in Scan- dinavia was Ansgar of Corbie. In the year that Harald Klag first appealed to the Emperor, Ansgar had left Corbie with several brethren for a newly es- tablished monastery, Corvey, on the Weser at a place now known as Hoxter. Although at this time only twenty-two, Ansgar possessed so much ability that he was made director of the educational work of the in- stitution, beside being commissioned to preach to the people of the surrounding country. Corvey was within Saxon territory and many Saxon youth were being trained in the monastery for work among their own people, whom Charlemagne had forced into baptism, — an excellent preparation for Ansgar's future missionary labours. Young as he was, he accomplished his work so well and showed so fine a spirit in all he undertook that his superior. Abbot Wala, was able to recommend him to the Emperor as the best fitted, and indeed the only one of the monks capable of directing the new mission. The Prankish teacher welcomed his com- mission eagerly. He had once dreamed of being caught up into the presence of the Eternal and hearing out of the ineffable glory a voice say, " Go, and return to me again crowned with martyrdom." Because of this vision he was the more willing to undertake a work which others shunned for its dangers. Only one of his companions volunteered to accompany him, and no servant was willing to face the perils of pagan Jutland for even so kindly a master as Ansgar. The period before the missionary's departure for his new labours was spent in diligent study of the Scrip- tures, which had already become to him a source of life. Remembering the legend-burdened biographies which have often so effectively obscured the real char- ANSGAR, BISHOP OF HAMBURG 167 acter and work of the early saints, and the tendency of the Church in later centuries to reverence human au- thority, we cannot fail to find a suggestive hint in this statement and in Ansgar's own view of miracle-work- ing power. *' If I could but think myself worthy," he said, " of such a favour from the Lord, I would pray Him to grant me but one miracle, that out of me, by His grace. He would make a good man." With the Danish prince, the two men sailed from Wyk te Duerstade, then Dorstatum, in 826, and for nearly two years laboured in Denmark. Like the English and Celtic missionaries, and their successors in our own era, Ansgar began his work by founding a school in which native lads were trained for teaching and preaching among their own people. Unhappily for the success of the mission, his fellow-labourer, Autbert, fell ill and was obliged to return to Corvey, while King Harald, hated for his adoption of an alien faith, was once more driven from the country, leaving it inexpedient for Ansgar to remain in Denmark. But if for a time Ansgar's work was interrupted in Jutland, there still remained a field for his labours white to the harvest beyond the skargard keeping its lonely watch and ward over the Swedish coast. As in the case of Ireland, Christianity had gradually gained a footing in Sweden through the commerce which its inhabitants carried on with central Europe and by Christian captives brought into the Northland by war or pillage. Those who had accepted the faith were anxious for instruction, and in seeking it naturally turned to the Christian emperor from whose subjects they had first learned the way of life. In response to their appeal, Louis sent Ansgar to this new field on 168 THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH his return from Denmark, giving him rich presents for King Olaf. The mission lasted a year and a half. At the end of that time Ansgar returned to the emperor's court, reporting the establishment of churches and the found- ing of schools and many converts won, some like Heigeir, men of much influence, while not less impor- tant a work, those already Christians had been in- structed and strengthened in the worthy following of the Christ they had accepted. Louis now felt that the time had come for such an organization of the work as his father had desired, and created a northern arch- bishopric with its see at Hamburg and Ansgar as metropolitan. The monk of Corvey thus became at the age of thirty joint director with Ebbo of all the missionary work in Scandinavia. Over the mission in Sweden Ansgar set one Gauzbert who directed the work from Wilna, a monastery in Denmark, the revenue from which supported the labourers in the northern peninsula. Gauzbert laboured many years among the sturdy Scandinavians, leading not a few of his hearers into newness of life. Ansgar now turned once more to the people among whom his first efforts had been made. To prepare labourers for the field in Denmark, he founded a school at Hamburg, and ransomed promising lads to be educated there. In these labours fourteen years slipped away, while the heathen king Horik, who had succeeded Harald Klag, persecuted the Danish labour- ers, and the death of Louis brought a division of Charlemagne's empire. Dissension among Louis' sons emboldened the eager Northmen, hovering on the Prankish frontier, to raid after raid within the empire's rich dominions. Finally, in 845, the Danish ANSGAR, BISHOP OF HAMBURG 169 king led an army of Norse warriors against the mis- sion's headquarters at Hamburg, burned the monastic buildings and the library with which Louis had en- dowed the school, and wasted the whole country/ The destruction of his see and later the loss of his other monastery at Turholt in Flanders seriously in- terrupted Ansgar's missionary work in Denmark. In the same year, also, Gauzbert's mission in Sweden was attacked by incensed pagans and Gauzbert himself driven from the country. The years of patient waiting and labour and prayer had their reward at last, however, as they must ever have, and miracles greater than any yet related by monastic chronicler were wrought among the fierce North folk of the two peninsulas. The missionary basis being strengthened by the union of the sees of Hamburg and Bremen, Ansgar addressed himself to the stubborn old pagan Horik, and by persuasion and gifts gained his permission to preach unhindered within his borders the message for which only a few years earlier the Danish king had lighted the fires of Hamburg. And so a church was built in Schleswig and the timid found courage to confess their faith in Christ and month by month new converts were won and the doom of paganism in Denmark was sealed, though its persecutions continued for yet many years. Meanwhile Ansgar had not forgotten the Christians of Sweden and, as soon as he was able to secure a labourer, reopened his mission in the northern penin- sula. The new missionary was sustained in the face ^ Ansgar's only words as he looked out over the ruins of his monastery were: "The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." 170 THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH of pagan opposition only by the loyalty of the Norse governor Heigeir, who through all the years of storm and stress had remained true to the faith taught him by Ansgar. At Heigeir's death in 852, the long- ing for solitude drew the hermit-missionary back to the homeland, and Ansgar went in person to the Swedish mission. On his arrival at Birka, the Arch- bishop found himself facing a condition very like one sometimes confronting our missionaries in non-Chris- tian lands to-day. Forced to recognize Christianity as a dangerous rival, the pagan priests had deified one of the popular hero-kings of the earlier days and thousands, carried away by the new cult, had inter- ested themselves in the erection of a temple to be con- secrated to Erich and in the establishment of festivals in his honour. Here was a whole city madly throw- ing itself into a revival of heathen worship, and by popular prejudice making it almost impossible for an alien teacher to obtain a hearing. When Ans- gar learned what the pagan priests had accomplished, he invited King Olaf to a great dinner and, by his courtly manner, the gifts which he had brought, and the recommendation of King Horik, his one-time per- secutor, gained a promise from the Swedish sovereign to summon an assembly of the people and to submit to them the question of giving toleration to the Christian faith. This promise King Olaf was not slow in ful- filling, with the result that the royal influence over- balanced the zeal of the heathen priests and Ansgar was left free to continue his work. He remained a few months longer, arranging the affairs of the mis- sion, which he left in charge of his companion, Erim- bert. The next years saw the death of King Horik, who Steinhaiiser ST. ANSGARIUS RELEASING HEATHEN BOY FROM YOKE OF PAGANISM ANSGAR, BISHOP OF HAMBURG 171 had protected the Danish mission, akhough he had never himself renounced the gods of his fathers. His successor fell under the influence of a pagan counsellor, and for a time the churches were closed and persecu- tion prevailed. Then a change of ministers led to the recall of Ansgar's assistant in Denmark, liberty of worship was again granted, and a second missionary campaign begun. So the months and years slipped away, while the faithful Ansgar planned new conquests for his mission fields in Denmark and Sweden. He had, besides, the duties of his immediate diocese, and laboured with his hands for his support and the furtherance of the work. Full of justice and mercy, he felt the cause of the poor and the oppressed, as the following story will prove. It happened not long before his death that certain slaves who had escaped from their masters were cap- tured in Holstein and held by powerful chieftains of that province. The veteran missionary at once inter- ested himself in their release, and when other means failed, went in person to the district, demanding the freedom of the captives. And such was Ansgar's power over even these pagan warriors that they dared not disobey his word. After sujfTering some months from a painful sick- ness, which he bore without complaint and even with cheerfulness, the " Apostle of the North " passed to his reward on the second of February, 865, praying for his enemies and repeating the words, " The Lord be merciful to me a sinner." Though at the end he entered his Master's presence without the martyr's crown of his dream, he bore with him what was far better, the memory of years of faithful service for his f ellowmen, a service which had planted Christianity 172 THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH too firmly in Scandinavia for it ever again to be en- tirely crushed out. " He was," says an historian of our day/ " one of the most beautiful characters in the whole mediaeval period. In charity, personal exposure, fearlessness of danger, and sublime devotion to his work, he was un- surpassed by any of his time." In the years following Ansgar's death, the work he had begun w^as carried forward by his pupil and biographer, Rimbert. But many years of persecution were yet to follow. When Svend ascended the Danish throne, despite two centuries of missionary activity, large numbers of his subjects were still worshippers of the old Norse gods and carried into their English conquests all the cruelty of a strength untempered by Christian mercy. Yet from these very conquests there came into the homeland influences which fulfilled the prayers of Ansgar and Rimbert. The great Canute accepted the Christian faith in England and became the means by which the Church was at last firmly established in his native land. In like manner, through buffetings and persecutions and defeats, the religion of the Christ came to its own in Sweden and Norway. In the latter country Chris- tianity triumphed under Olaf the Saint in the eleventh century. In the same century the most formidable stronghold of Swedish paganism, the beautiful old temple at Upsala, was burned amid much rejoicing and the All-Father was once more worshipped by a people who in remote ages had bowed down before Him on lonely mountain tops or in the solitudes of the dark forests, dimly understanding His power, but fail- ing to understand His love. ijohn Fletcher Hurst," Short History of the Christian Church." XVI MESSENGERS AMONG THE SLAVS Cyril (Constantine) and Methodius "Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore. Justice after as before, — And he who battles on her side, God, though he were ten times slain, Crowns him victor glorified, Victor over death and pain." — Emerson, " Voluntaries^ EIGHT centuries had passed since the Apostle to the Gentiles first preached the good news of the Christ in the prosperous pagan seaport of Thessalonica, gaining from out that city of materialism and false faiths a church which he could address in after years as " his hope, and joy, and crown of re- joicing." Long ago the gospel for which Paul had been driven from city to city of Asia and of Europe had triumphed, outwardly at least, in the Macedonian capital, and pagan temple had become Christian church, and the voice of prayer had sounded where the incense of heathen sacrifice had been wont to rise. Yet, away to the north, beyond the snow-capped moun- tains, still lay regions all but untouched by Christian influences, and to these Thessalonica was to send two of the greatest missionaries ever commissioned by the Eastern Church to Slavic peoples. They were 173 174 MESSENGERS AMONG THE SLAVS brothers, Constantine and Methodius, who belonged to a family held in high esteem in Thessalonica, and were themselves men of talent, the one rising to positions of political responsibility, the other choosing a philoso- pher's life and elected by the state to a professorship of philosophy in Thessalonica. When they had be- come marked men in their professions, the brothers gave up their secular careers, took upon themselves monastic vows, and in due time were chosen for mis- sionary service in Moravia. To understand their mission, it will be necessary to review briefly the course of events in eastern Europe following the labours of Wulfila. In the year 402 Alaric the Goth led his vast armies westward into Italy, leaving destruction in the Roman provinces through which he passed. The Gothic migrations of the following years and, above all, the irresistible march of the Huns across Europe laid desolate the walled cities on the Empire's frontier and devastated the whole country. To these deserted places in course of time came tribes from the north and east and where the ordered provinces of Rhsetia and Noricum and Pannonia had been, the Boii and the Slavs founded the kingdoms of Bavaria and Moravia, the latter includ- ing, besides the present territory, much of what is now Upper Hungary. In 788 Bavaria became a duchy of Charlemagne's empire. Moravia also acknowledged the suzerainty of the great Frank, and it was by west- ern agencies that the knowledge of Christianity first came to the Moravians. Among the ruins of the old Juvavia, Bishop Rupert of Worms, who came into Bavaria by invitation of its Duke in the latter part of the seventh century, founded a church which was destined to become, under Boni- CYRIL AND METHODIUS 175 face, the seat of the episcopal see of Salzburg. Dur- ing the years when Willibrord was labouring to con- vert the men of Frisia, the German Rupert travelled throughout Bavaria, preaching and baptizing. A hun- dred years later Arno, the friend of Alcuin and the Emperor, was appointed to the see of Salzburg, and spent the remainder of his life in building up an edu- cational system in Bavaria and in superintending mis- sionary work in the western portions of Moravia. The great hindrance to this work and its extension eastward was the insistence of the missionaries upon the use of the Latin language in all the church ritual. With no Bible in the Slavic tongue, and the church service in an unknown language, it is small wonder that the real spirit of Christianity was long in finding place in the ]\Ioravian provinces. When the magic of the great Emperor's name had ceased to be, these restless Slavic peoples threw off their foreign yoke, and Great Moravia became an inde- pendent kingdom. Its ruler, Rostislav, realized that the onmarch of the Christian Church would soon sweep away the worship of his country's gods, and sent to Constantinople for teachers to instruct his peo- ple in the triumphant faith of the south and to trans- late into the Slavic tongue the sacred writings of the Christians. And so Methodius and Constantine en- tered the mission fields of the north and the careful scholarship and linguistic talent of these two men were employed in translating the Bible and service books into the native tongue of the Slavs. We know very little about these Greek Christians, it is true, but we need only the fact that throughout their missionary labours they stood firmly for a Bible in the hands of the people and preaching and ritual in the native tongue 176 MESSENGERS AMONG THE SLAVS to enlighten us as to the character of their Christian teaching. They deemed the spirit of a faith that should be exemplified in daily living of far greater im- portance than a form of ritual and a magic of words. Not otherwise can we satisfactorily account for their zeal in labouring to build the church in Moravia upon the sure foundation of a clear understanding of the gospel they were accepting. If only the ecclesiastics of that day and a later time had used the energy spent in struggling for matters of minor value in co- operative efforts to bring a pure and undefiled religion of the heart to their pagan neighbours, what a power for good might have been built up in Eastern Europe. Of the after life of these men we have at least an outline of fact. About the year 868 Constantine and Methodius were summoned to Rome, on what pretext we do not know. If prejudices against their methods of work existed, the missionaries succeeded in remov- ing them and in gaining the Pope's approval of the Slavic ritual. Methodius returned to his labours in Moravia, but his brother remained in the Imperial City,^ according to tradition dying there on the four- teenth of February of the next year. Before entering the Moravian field, he had laboured among the Khazars of the Crimea, translating the service-books into their tongue and at least a portion of the Scriptures, so that by far the best years of his life had been consecrated to the missionary cause, to which he had devoted his splendid intellectual powers. After the death of Rostislav, Methodius was again called to Rome to explain his methods in evangelizing Moravia, and again won respect for his labours by his 1 He entered a monastery, probably on account of illness, and received the name of Cyril. CYRIL AND METHODIUS 17T intelligent and zealous report of the work being accom- plished among this erstwhile pagan folk. Still the missionary was not allowed to continue his labours in quiet, and the jealousy of the Salzburgian clergy, who held to the Roman ritual, and their attempts to cast discredit upon his labours saddened the last years of his life and claimed much of the strength he might have employed in the accomplishment of plans for evangelistic conquest on the still heathen frontiers. He kept the papal sanction throughout the struggle, however, and never faltered in the principles on which he based his ministrations. Before such strength of purpose, of whatever time or people, after ages must bow in admiration. May the centuries yet see the ful- filment of the missionary-monk's great dream in a new and grander Christian Slavonia. During these years Methodius extended his activity into Servia and Croatia, but after his death, which oc- curred in 885, the Slavonian clergy were largely driven out of the territory in which he had preached, and no other great leader arose to continue the work of the Thessalonian missionary. Through all the centuries since that day political turmoil and the deadening ef- fects of ritualism have kept the Slavic peoples of the Balkan peninsula in ignorance of the free gospel Paul sought to bring to Eastern Europe. Let us remember these facts in our judgment of the Slav who comes to-day to our shores and who will perhaps return to his native land carrying there the riches or the poverty with which we endow him. In this same ninth century the Russian Slavs were united under Ruric and his brothers, Scandinavian warriors. The wife of Ruric's nephew Igor is a well- known name in Russian annals; for Queen Olga was a 178 MESSENGERS AMONG THE SLAVS woman of political sagacity and imperious spirit, not one willingly to occupy a secondary place at court. For a time regent of the kingdom and manifesting ruthless vengeance upon her enemies, after her son came to the throne she journeyed to Constantinople, was instructed in the Christian faith, and on her return to Russia sought the conversion of the king, but to no avail. Not for many years thereafter was Russia to renounce her Slavic gods, and then only upon com- mand of King Vladimir. Yet with the King himself acceptance of Christianity seems to have meant real conversion, and the prince, who had sounded the depths and hollo wness of evil-doing, after a vain at- tempt to find peace in the worship of his pagan deities, sent an embassy to Constantinople to inquire into the mysteries of the Christian faith was later bap- tized by the Greek Patriarch, and became in very truth, according to his knowledge and his age, " a new man in Christ Jesus." Nevertheless Vladimir was a sovereign with royal rights, and if his sub- jects were not willing to come otherwise, was it not good for them to be brought forcibly into the Kingdom of the King of Kings ? The great god Rerun was thrown into the river Dnieper, and on a day of the year 992 the Slavs of Novgorod were summoned to the river for baptism by the Greek priests whom Vladimir had brought from the Empire. So the end of open idolatry came in this great Slavic stronghold, but the living Christ is not yet known in His beauty in the Russian Empire. XVII MARTYRS FOR THEIR FAITH Trudpert, Kilian, the Hewalds, Wenceslaus, Adalbert, and Gottschalk " The Son of God goes forth to war, A kingly crown to gain : His blood-red banner streams afar : Who follows in His train ? Who best can drink His cup of woe Triumphant over pain, Who patient bears His cross below, He follows in His train." — Reginald Heber. ALONG the eastern bank of the storied Rhine, in Southern Germany, there stretches a vast area ^ of romantic country which, by its quaint legends, yearly invites hundreds of travellers to its sombre yet irresistibly beautiful reaches of fir and pine. This attractive region is the world-famous Schwarz- wald, or Black Forest, extending over nearly two thou- sand square miles of rugged mountains and secluded valleys, from Basle to Lake Constance, and northward again to the Rhine at Baden. A summer pilgrimage in the cool of these woodland ways would seem in our time an ideal holiday, a joy to be remembered long afterward in the dust of the city's crowded streets. Far otherwise must the gloomy depths of the forest have appeared to the missionaries of the seventh cen- tury as, on foot and often alone, they braved the un- 179 180 MARTYRS FOR THEIR FAITH known terrors of this great wilderness. "Away it stretched from the fair Rhineland, wave after wave of oak and alder, beech and pine, God alone knew how far, into the land of night and wonder, and the infinite unknown, full of elk and bison, bear and wolf, lynx and glutton, and perhaps of worse beasts still." ^ During the years of Irish missionary zeal on the Con- tinent, we may imagine many a dark-robed figure threading these wilderness paths, lying down to rest at night in some sheltered spot, with only God to pro- tect them from the perils of the dark and lonely forest. Few of these missionary heroes are known to us by name, fewer still are real and living figures. Colum- banus and Gallus we have already followed from per- secution in France to a new field of labour on the Bo- densee. Another Celtic monk, Fridolin by name, came to the Rhine not many years after the death of Gallus, and founded a monastery on the island of Sackingen. Still another is written in the pages of history as the Martyr of the Black Forest. The old Roman Borbetomagus built upon the site of the Worms of Luther's day and our own, had be- come by the seventh century a stronghold of the Celtic church in Germany. From this city, in the early years of the same century, we are told that an Irish monk named Trudpert set out to the westward to found in the midst of the Schwarzwald a mission centre from which he might carry the gospel to the scattered hab- itations of the Franconian Germans. On his arrival in the Rhine district Trudpert would seem to have ap- pealed to the prince of the country for protection, but betrayed by the men whom Othbert appointed to ac- company him in his search for a suitable site for his iMaclear, "Apostles of Mediaeval Europe." TRUDPERT, KILIAN 181 monastery, this man of God was saved for his few years of service only by his own vigilance. Among protecting mountains he came at last upon a pleasant, secluded vale, where he erected a rude monastery, la- bouring himself diligently with the helpers sent from Othbert's court, while the shadows of the forest that fell back before their toil betokened the martyr's death he was to suffer. The end came after three years spent in these woodland depths, and through the very men with whom he had lived and in whom he had trusted with a simple confidence. Tired, perhaps, of a life of self-renunciation, the half-pagan monks set upon their leader, beheaded him, and, fleeing toward Alemannia, were captured and executed. Thus, at least, runs the story of the Martyr of the Black Forest as later writers have told it. Rather more clearly defined is the life of the Irish missionary Kilian, whose body rests in the Neumiin- ster of Wiirzberg. While studying the Scriptures in an Irish monastery, he heard his Master's call, " Whoso forsaketh not all that he has, cannot be my disciple," and with twelve companions set out for the Continent to labour among the pagan tribes of Ger- many. He began his labours in Franconia, and suc- ceeded in winning Duke Gozbert, who, according to one account, was baptized by the Irish missionary. Not long afterward, Kilian fell a martyr to his zeal for the laws of the Church. Duke Gozbert marrying his brother's wife or widow, the missionary was not slow in rebuking his prince for violation of ecclesias- tical law. The duke promised amendment of his fault, but, during her husband's absence on the battlefield, the duchess procured the assassination of Kilian and his companions. 182 MARTYRS FOR THEIR FAITH Somewhere in this same region another Irish la- bourer, LandoHn, met death at the hands of heathen whom he had enraged by cutting down a sacred fir and forming a cross from its wood, while in Brabant, in 653, a fellow-countryman, Livin, suffered martyr- dom among those whom he was seeking to win to Christianity. The historian Bede gives us the story of the two Hewalds. They were Saxons of England, brothers, who, after training in Ireland, went to preach to their kinsmen, the Saxons of northern Germany. From their hair and complexions, these men were known as Black Hewald and White Hewald, the former being better versed in the Scriptures. Hardly could they have selected a more dangerous and difficult field for their labours than the home of the men who gave to England some of her bravest citizens and who later struggled so long and desperately against the great Emperor Charlemagne. Among all the Germans they were perhaps the most warlike, the most unwilling to bow to a foreign power. But the Hewalds were of the same sturdy stock as the people among whom they were to labour, and so a little later we find them in a village of the North German forest waiting for the reeve, whose guests they were, to bring them before the chieftain of the tribe. Day by day the people watched them singing and praying to their God, and ever more and more bitter became their suspicious hatred of these strangers from across the sea. At length the anger of this turbulent folk flamed out in a wild burst of passion. " On a sudden," writes Bede, " they laid hold on them and put them to death, and White Hewald they slew outright; but they put Black Hewald to lingering torture . . . and threw their THE HEWALDS, WENCESLAUS 183 bodies into the Rhine." As in the case of Trudpert's murderers, speedy vengeance was visited upon the assassins, whose village was entirely destroyed by the ealdorman of the district. The century following Moravia's conversion under the preaching of Cyril and Methodius was a transition period for its northern neighbour, Bohemia. Bor- ziwoi, Duke of Bohemia, it would seem had received baptism at the Moravian court during the years of Methodius' mission, but did not succeed in winning his subjects to the faith of the Christians. In 927 an outbreak occurred between the pagan and Christian factions. Ludmilla, Borziwoi's wife, had been in- trusted with the education of her two grandsons, Wen- ceslaus and Boleslav, whom she endeavoured to rear in the Christian faith. In Wenceslaus she found a ready and appreciative pupil, but Boleslav and his mother opposed Ludmilla and finally secured the mur- der of the Christian duchess. When Wenceslaus be- came ruler of the country, he sought to extend the faith by gentle means among his subjects. Churches and monasteries and benevolent institutions were built throughout the land, but the good duke lacked the firm- ness necessary to control the pagan opposition, which was led by the duke's brother. Wearied with the long struggle, Wenceslaus was about to abdicate and go on a pilgrimage to Rome, when he was put to death at his brother's instigation outside the church whither he had gone to worship with his people. During the reign of Boleslav paganism was again triumphant in Bohemia. Under his successor, Bole- slav the Mild, Prague was made the seat of a new bishopric and Christianity nominally accepted. Su- perstition and immorality, however, still continued, 184 MARTYRS FOR THEIR FAITH often under the name of Christianity, and when the Czech Adalbert ^ became Archbishop of Prague in 983, he found a corrupt church and a dissolute clergy. Impetuous of disposition and aspiring to a martyr's death, Adalbert probably accomplished less in winning people and priesthood to a higher life than if he had employed more sane and conservative methods. Yet his years of labour, interrupted by occasional journeys to Rome when he became discouraged in the home field, stand as a courageous protest against a religion of mere outward form. In later life he received a commission from Rome to preach among the pagans of Poland, where in 997 he was thrust through the heart by a heathen priest. Wenceslaus was not the only sovereign to suffer death at the hands of his pagan subjects. Ax more dra- matic tale has not come down to us from mediaeval times than the story of the Slav, Gottschalk, who built up a Wendish kingdom in the eleventh century between the Elbe and Oder. This prince was sent at an early age to a monastery on the Kalkberg above Liineburg. Here he was educated in the Christian faith, but on hearing of his father's murder at the hands of Chris- tian Germans, left the monastery and, gathering a strong force of his countrymen, the Wends, who were fanatical pagans, laid waste the whole country about Hamburg, burning and slaying even as far north as Denmark. But the teachings of his childhood were yet to bear fruit, and from one of these cruel expedi- tions he returned repentant and mourning the destruc- tion of peaceful villages and happy homes for which he had been responsible, and vowing to devote his life henceforth to the religion he had scorned in the days of ^ His Bohemian name was Woitech. GOTTSCHALK 185 his bitter vengeance. In time Gottschalk succeeded in forming his people into a strong confederacy, with the growth of temporal power, taking care, also, to build up the feeble Wendish church. In spite of opposition, he brought many teachers and preachers into his realm. Like Oswald of Northumbria, he himself interpreted the Latin ritual for his people and at the church serv- ices explained the principles of Christian living, since many of the clergy who came to him were ignorant of the Slavic tongue. As might be expected, the influence of so strong a monarch won thousands of converts to the religion which successive Prankish rulers had tried in vain to force upon them. But the stronger the hold that Christianity gained upon the people, the more bitter grew the opposition of the leaders of the old paganism. In 1066, nineteen years after he had made himself emperor of his people, Gottschalk was surprised by pagan murderers at Lenzen and died a martyr to the faith for which he had laboured. With him perished over sixty priests and bishops, some stoned to death, others offered as sacrifice upon heathen altars. One monk begged to see his companions stoned first lest they falter and deny the faith. The aged bishop, John of Mecklenburg, suffered days of torture without a murmur, and was finally beheaded and offered in sacri- fice to Radegast. A general persecution of the Wend- ish church followed, and not until 1168 was the last idol destroyed in the kingdom over which Gottschalk had ruled. PART II DARKNESS AND DAYBREAK "Christ commanded us. saying, ' This I command you, that ye love one another' — Therefore these words ought the more to be regarded, seeing He Himself spake them at His last departing from us. May God of His mercy give us His grace so to walk here in this world, charitably and friendly one with another, that we may attain the joy which God hath prepared for all those that love Him. Amen." — Hugh Latimer. " He that turneth from the road to rescue another Turneth toward his goal : He shall arrive in due time by the footpath of mercy, God will be his guide. " He that careth for the sick and wounded Watcheth not alone : There are three in the darkness together. And the third is the Lord. " Blessed is the way of the helpers : The companions of the Christ," — Henry Van Dyke. BACKGROUNDS LIKE a mountain stream, animate with the force of the hills, overleaping with joyous bounds the •^ impeding boulder, unstayed by apparent defeat, rushing on its way with the impetuosity of youth, jubi- lant as the morning, triumphant as an army with banners, that glorious company of early apostles had carried Europe on the strong tide of their enthusiasm into the Christian faith and destroyed for all time the power of pagan priest. It is like breathing the keen air of the uplands or facing the salt winds and the driven spray on the boundless sea to read that thrilling story of buoyant hope and all-subduing and holy am- bition. The glory of the morning and of youth is in it, that celestial glory which only the Spirit of God can renew in our lives, and into the full possession of which we shall come in that homeland whose builder and maker is God. Yet it was perhaps inevitable that such a period of rapturous zeal should be followed by a time of reac- tion, such as seems forever to intervene between a first love and faith and the steadier and more enduring advance of maturity. And it was in truth a troubled world in which the Church found itself in those cen- turies following the breaking up of old governments and old institutions and the beginning of new things. No wonder that the fair purity of the earlier faith 189 190 BACKGROUNDS lost much of its freedom and of its spiritual power as the years went on. Yet with all these defects, one hesitates to think what Europe would have been with- out the Church, even when her light burned lowest. From her conflict with pagan philosophies and heathen practices, with war and murder and carnage, with ig- norance and superstition, above all with the subtler foes of prosperity and lands and magnificence and de- sire for authority, she emerged a sovereign power, throned in the Imperial City of the Caesars, holding threads of influence felt to the uttermost bounds of western Europe, but without her original gift of life more abundant in which the Christ is seen of men. A moral force she always, in varying degrees, remained ; a spiritual force, in any high and universal degree, she was not. Such a church could not be a missionary church. Gradually the Bishop of Rome, through prestige of the city's great past, became a counselling and then a governing head of the Church of Western Europe. In the ninth century the supposed discovery of the Isidorian Decretals placed the final stone upon the foundation upholding papal authority, which had been begun in the preceding century by the " Donation of Pepin." ^ In the eleventh century Hildebrand set him- self to raise the power of the Papacy above that of the sovereigns of Europe in order to strengthen the moral influence of the Church. And in this he suc- ceeded, though for his victory he died in exile. Inno- cent the Third and Gregory the Ninth completed the work he began. Yet the reforms which called into 1 The gift to the Pope of Ravenna, the Pentapolis, the Emilia, and the duchy of Rome, these forming the beginning of the Pa- pal States. BACKGROUNDS 191 being the monastic orders, and for which Hildebrand had striven, proved not to be permanent in character. When Francis began preaching and Hving the simple gospel of the Christ in Italy, the clergy were corrupt and simony was still common. There was no preach- ing by the priesthood, public worship had become " a sort of self-acting magic formula," miracles held a prominent place, and the worship of relics seemed hardly more than a pagan rite. Between the soul and God there stood a mass of barriers which darkened the vision of even the most saintly. In the erection of this wall of personal mediation and in other of her in- stitutions the Church brought into being elements which have hindered her purity and usefulness and will continue to do so as long as they remain a part of her creed. Not only did the ambition to extend the temporal power of the Church leave little room for developing missionary operations in other lands, but the hostile attitude of Mohammedan and Mongol, the need Eu- rope had of fighting for her very existence and inde- pendence before the inroads of Tartar hordes for many centuries prevented the rise of any widespread missionary spirit in the Church. The Crusades were a better expression of the attitude of the Church toward infidel and pagan than the missionary aspira- tions of Francis of Assisi and Raimundus Lullus. With the conversion of the Slavs, the missionary en- terprise of Europe fell into a long sleep, from which it was in part awakened by Jesuit zeal in the sixteenth century. During those many years few cared to look in love beyond their own boundaries. An age that could devise the Inquisition would not look in mercy and pity upon the unbeliever. 192 BACKGROUNDS On the eve of All Saints, 15 17, a professor of phi- losophy at Wittenberg nailed to the door of the Schlosskirche ninety-five theses called forth by the monk Tetzel's shameless sale of indulgences. You know the outcome of that bold act : how, before the century closed, Germany and England, Sweden and Denmark, and Norway and the Netherlands had left the Church and ceased to look to Rome for salvation. Sadly depleted were the Church's ranks and battle- scarred and broken the citadel of the Holy Hierarchy. How should the lost power be regained? The answer came in a new organization founded by a Spanish Catholic, Ignatius of Loyola. Through the mis- sionary members of their Order, the Jesuits sought to win in other lands what had been lost at home. In the study of these Jesuit missions we must dis- tinguish sharply between the organization and the in- dividual and between the earlier and later apostles. " The mediaeval Jesuit," says one writer, " might be and often was a hero, saint, and martyr, but the sys- tem which he was obliged to administer was doomed to failure." Though taking upon itself the name of the holy Founder of our faith, the Society has not in the judgment of the world, manifested His spirit. Surely Christ believed and believes in men and in their possibilities for individual development and achieve- ment. Did He not make of a taxgatherer and fisher- men apostles, the light of whose lives has shone clear and steady down the centuries ? Yet in the rules for the Order we read the expression of principles which have worn heavily upon many a sincere soul and turned the zeal of others into channels where weary labour and true heroism have been borne onward to failure. BACKGROUNDS 193 Obedience to the Pope and obedience of the indi- vidual Jesuit to his superior and of all members to the General of the Order, is demanded. We quote from a letter of Loyola's to the Portuguese Jesuits, which is still read once a month at meal-time in the Profess- houses :^ " Whoever, therefore, will attain to the virtue of obedience must . . . not only execute the commands of his superior, but also make the will of the superior his own, or rather dispossess himself of his own will and lean upon that of his superior as divinely given to him. Furthermore, whoever will wholly give him- self to God, must (and this is the third step in obe- dience) immolate both the will and the understanding, so that he shall not only will but also think as his superior and surrender his judgment to that of his superior's, in so far as a devout soul can bend the reason." And again, from the lips of a French Jesuit: " Would any one know what obedience is with refer- ence to the extent of the sacrifice ? A voluntary death, the grave of the will." The crushing of all individualism, an obedience that leaves no power of moral choice, the theory that the end justifies the means, " for the greater glory of God," and the system of espionage — one of the most despicable of evils, and forever failing in its purpose and revealing only the stupidity of the watcher — are foundation principles that have been most severely ^ " 14 Jahre Jesuit," Graf von Honsbroch, Leipzig, 1910. Auto- biographical notes and criticism of the Society of Jesus by a German count, who was a member of the Order for four- teen years, from 1878 to 1892, in the latter year leaving both the Order and the Roman Catholic Church. 194. BACKGROUNDS censured in the long course of the years and are to-day more than ever out of harmony with the world's thought. What is admirable here as everywhere is that spirit of real heroism which led to the giving up even of life itself for what was deemed a worthy cause. And it is this phase of early Jesuitism, — its noblest phase, — that discovers for it a place in our annals of missionary heroism. Very surprising at first seems the indifference to missionary interests of men newly liberated from the thraldom of centuries. For nearly two hundred years after the Reformation the Protestant Church remained on the whole content with caring for its own develop- ment, and even explicitly taught that Christ's com- mand to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature was laid upon the apostles only and had already been fulfilled. The end of all things comes shortly, perhaps in their own century; for a long period they are not brought into contact with the heathen world and the prejudices of centuries are not easily removed. Furthermore, is there not sufficient with which to occupy their hands in the conversion of the paganized Christian Church at home? The exceptions to this apathy are few and widely separated. In 1555 two pastors were sent out from Geneva to the unfortunate colony in Brazil of which Villegaignon was founder; but after a little service gave up the missionary labours in despair and were themselves shortly expelled from the colony by the treachery of Villegaignon. About the same time Gus- tavus Vasa sent labourers into Finland to recall the half-pagan Lapps to Christianity. In the colony of New Sweden on the Delaware, Campanius in the mid- dle of the next century sought to win his Indian neigh- BACKGROUNDS 195 hours to an acceptance of the Christian faith. The Scotch Confession of 1560 closes with a prayer which to-day, on many a mission field, the spiritual descend- ants of Knox are most sturdily labouring to fulfil. " Give Thy servants strength to speak Thy words in boldness; and let all nations attain to Thy true knowledge." The Reformed Church, as we have said, taught that the missionary command had been already fulfilled. A solitary voice in the sixteenth century was raised in denial of this strange assertion. Adrianus Saravia, a Dutch exile in England, published in 1590 a little pam- phlet in which he proves that the work of preaching to all nations was far too great for the apostles to accomplish and that the missionary history of the past is a call to the Church to face anew its obligations to the non-Christian world. In the next century, the Age of Orthodoxy, " Protestantism, as a doctrine, be- came scholastic; as a life, it became political, and the consciousness of the Holy Spirit as a living, personal helper, became dimmed. By 1700 the vital element of the Reformation had apparently lost its power." ^ Yet even in this era of darkness we find a little group of men to whom the missionary concept was in varying degrees becoming apparent. A German, one Peter Heiling, set out for Egypt in 1632, spending some time in Malta for the study of Arabic, and later preaching to the Copts. Like Frumentius," who had laboured so many centuries earlier in Abyssinia, Heiling gave the New Testament to the people in their own tongue, but unlike the former finally died a mar- tyr's death. Justinian von Weltz, an Austrian baron 1 F. B. Denio, " The Supreme Leader." 2 Apostle of Abyssinia, lived in fourth century. 196 BACKGROUNDS whose father had been exiled from his native land by the Bohemian persecution of 1622, devoted his time and money to the task of awakening the Church to a sense of its duty toward the non-Christian world. He pleaded for a " Christian Society of Jesus having for its object the Betterment of Christendom and the Con- version of Heathendom," to be conducted, one would judge, on very much the same general plan as our mis- sionary societies of to-day. Von Weltz was not al- lowed to publish his writings in Germany, and suf- fered withering scorn from certain Orthodox leaders, among whom was Johann Heinrich Ursinus. This Ursinus speaks freely of the heathen as " blasphemous persecutors," " dogs and swine," and " positive sav- ages, who have nothing human about them." " Where there are Christians," thus Dr. Warneck summarizes some of these strange arguments, " missions are su- perfluous, and where there are no Christians they are hopeless, as, e. g., in Japan, China, and Africa. When in face of great dangers, Justinian makes his appeal to trust in God, that is to tempt God. The God-given call is : Remain at home. ' But if the matter is of God, God will Himself further His cause and show ways and means so that the heathen shall fly as doves to the windows.' " But the voices would not be stilled. The matter was of God, and He works surely if He sometimes works slowly. From yet another and a more unex- pected quarter the Church was forced to hear the call to wider helpfulness. Baron von Leibnitz, one of the great original thinkers of his age, had been brought into contact with Jesuit missionaries from the far East and now urged a like work in the Lutheran Church. But, though the newly founded Berlin Academy of BACKGROUNDS 197 Sciences promised to charge itself " with the propa- gation of the true faith and Christian virtue," still nothing very definite came of Von Leibnitz's zealous advocacy of an unpopular cause. As Catholic, and especially Jesuit missions had fol- lowed in the wake of Latin exploration and conquest, which were, nominally, at least, undertaken for the extension of Christianity, so the first expansion of Protestantism beyond European boundaries was at- tendant upon colonization and commercial ventures. While the church in Germany was still closing its heart to the needs of the great pagan world, far across the Atlantic in the land of the sunset, John Eliot and the Mayhews and other pastors ^ of like faithfulness were threading forest ways to carry to their dusky neigh- bours the message that in more than one village changed the indolent warrior into the peaceful and industrious citizen. Of a truth such men were hearing and heeding the Macedonian cry.- Those days saw also the organization of the first missionary society in England — a precursor of the many organizations to- day representing the far-reaching activity of English Christians. This was the Corporation for the Propa- gation of the Gospel in New England, formed in 1649. Dutch missions had their origin in the new trade with the Indies which, with indomitable spirit, they were developing before the Spanish were well out of the Netherlands. Unhappily, many of the mistakes of the Catholic labourers were repeated by the clergy- men sent out to the ports of the Dutch East India Company, and hope of official favour and of personal 1 Eliot's labours do not come within the scope of this work. 2 The first seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony represented an Indian uttering the call, "Come over and help us." 198 BACKGROUNDS gain attracted those among the natives who did not witness to their faith with changed lives, so that nu- merical success as indicated in the numbers of baptisms recorded was often far more than actual achievement. Nevertheless, for three hundred years the work has gone on with periods of rise and fall, ebb and flood, and with the self-denying servants even in days of gloom. In Java, " Holland's treasure-house," in For- mosa, and in Ceylon and the Moluccas, the years wit- nessed a rapid spread of nominal Christianity. Yet when the new age of missions dawned upon the East years later, only islands of hope rose above a weltering sea of heathenism and Mohammedanism. Let us return to Germany and the forerunners of modern missions. In the ancient Saxon city of Halle on the Saale the year 1691 saw the founding of a uni- versity which was to exert a profound influence upon the current of the Church's life abroad. With the city and the movement which it fostered are insep- arably bound up the names of two men, founders of Pietism and prophets of a new day in missions, Jacob Spener and August Hermann Francke. Spener, an Alsatian by birth, after study in Strass- burg and Geneva, was called to a pastorate at Frank- fort-on-the-Main. Here, in meetings for Bible study at the pastor's home, originated the great movement of Pietism, which in the years following spread with marvellous rapidity throughout Germany. In its in- ception the movement stood for the witness of the Spirit with our spirits that we are the children of God, for a knowledge of the Scriptures, and for a renewal of Christian responsibility on the part of the laity, — ■ a striking feature, since the Lutheran clergy had made of their order a hierarchy pure and simple. For the BACKGROUNDS 199 later development of the movement its founders were not responsible. Meanwhile Francke had organized classes for Bible study at Leipzig and at Erfurt, his eloquent sermons in the latter place leading to criticism and banishment. Together at Halle the two men gave form and colour to their more practical theology, which now entered the lists against the scholasticism of Wittenberg and Leipzig. The men who went out to India under com- mission from the Danish government had been trained in Francke's classes and in his spirit, and later, In the midst of their toil, found inspiration in his written messages. At home he succeeded in gathering a body of support for the work, within the Church, convinc- ing some at least that the evangelization of the non- Christian world was quite as much the business of the Church as of the colonial governments. The eighteenth century, also, saw the beginning of Moravian missions. Bohemia, the land of Hus, proved good ground for evangelical sowing and brought forth a great harvest of believers who desired a reformed church. Not that these at first caught the full vision. The death of Hus, to be sure, sent a wave of indignation throughout the land, and brought the Slavs together into a solid body of opposition to the oppressing German prelates. But of these the greater part were Utraquists,^ men whose chief contention was for reform within the Church, and who gained their name from their demand for the administering of the Communion in both kinds, the chalice having been withheld from the laity for many years. Over against the Utraquists were the Taborites, forerunners of modern Protestantism. For a time the contest be- » Calixtines. 200 BACKGROUNDS tween the Empire and the Slavs was sharp and bit- ter, the Emperor more than once gathering forces for a crusade against rebelhous Bohemia. In 1434 the Taborite minority, who had never been in good fellowship with the more corrupt Utraquist Church, was defeated, with the result that a partial reconcilia- tion was effected between the more moderate reformers and the Emperor. Meanwhile there were still Sepa- ratists, who claimed freedom of worship, often through severe persecution. We catch glimpses of them fol- lowing deserted ways drifted deep with snows to gather about a campfire in some lonely mountain defile for the worship denied them at home. The little vil- lage of Kunwald, under Peter of Chelcic and Gregory the patriarch, became the headquarters of the new way. To the original believers were added Walden- sians and even Utraquists, and here arose the name of the Bohemian Brethren. The Reformation sent the freer faith everywhere in Bohemia and Moravia,^ only to be met a few years later by insidious opposition and persecution by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits. After the battle of the White Mountain in 1620, no fewer than thirty thousand families fled from Bo- hemia, leaving a remnant, the Hidden Seed, which still worshipped in secret in Moravia. In 1722 Chris- tian David led a small company of these into Saxony. Soon, on Count Zinzendorf's estate, was rising the lit- tle village of Herrnhut, and before ten years had passed the brethren so lately fleeing from persecution were sending out labourers to the two Americas, in- 1 May it not be that the warm reception of the new truths in Moravia was due to the effect upon Moravian Christianity of the Slavic Bible of Cyril and Methodius? BACKGROUNDS 201 augurating the first successful campaign for missions purely foreign since that glorious morning-time of mis- sionary activity. For the Moravians embraced their service wholly as a labour of love, uncalled by the re- sponsibilities w^hich the conquest of non-Christian lands forced upon English, Dutch, Danish, and Latin peoples. In no way were they dependent upon home or colonial governments. At the Edinburgh Confer- ence the late M. Boegner said, " The French Protestant Church at home has been saved by its missions abroad." ^ And who can say that the vigour of the little Moravian Church — a church giving five times as many labourers to the mission field as she keeps pas- tors at home — is not largely due to her willing obe- dience to the last command of her Lord. Still the Protestant Church as a whole through- out Europe slept on. Neither to its heights of privi- lege at home, nor to a realization that the Christian is his brother's keeper and the ambassador of his Lord, was the Church of Germany or Scandinavia or Eng- land yet willing to open its thought. Only with the last years of the eighteenth century did any consid- erable change manifest itself. In England the way was prepared by Whitefield and the Wesleys, and by the explorations of Cook in the South Seas. With quickened spiritual vision came the organized advance of the Christian hosts of Europe and America to a final conflict with paganism. In 1792, through the influence of William Carey, the Father of Modern Missions, was organized the Baptist Mis- sionary Society, concerning which we shall speak more fully in our last chapter. Three years later the Lon- don Missionary Society came into being, and in 1799 1 See Appendix I, note 4. £02 BACKGROUNDS the Church Missionary Society was formed, counting among its charter members such men as John Newton, the hymn- writer; Charles Grant, director of the East India Company; Zachary Macaulay, father of Lord Macaulay, and William Wilber force, philanthropist. The founding of the London Missionary Society, September 22-24, 1795? was attended by many interest- ing circumstances. On the evening of the last day of the conference, a great audience came together in the Tottenham Court Road Tabernacle. Mr. Home de- scribes the service thus : " By common consent, the striking sermon then preached by Dr. Bogue touched the high-water mark of missionary apologetics. ... It was in the course of this sermon that Dr. Bogue described the congregation as attending ' the funeral of bigotry.' ' May she be buried so deep,' he added fervently, ' that not a particle of her dust may ever be thrown up on the face of the earth.' The congregation shared to the full the preacher's catholic sentiments. There was ' a visible union of ministers and Christians of all denomina- tions, who, for the first time, forgetting their party prejudices and partialities, assembled in the same place, sang the same hymns, united in the same prayers, and felt themselves one in Christ.' There can be lit- tle doubt that the unanimous opinion of those who took part in these phenomenal gatherings was voiced by Dr. Bogue, when he said, ' We shall account it, through eternity, a distinguished favour, and the highest honour conferred on us during our pilgrimage on earth, that we appeared here and gave our names among the Founders of the Missionary Society.' " In March, 1797, the ship Duff, bearing the first mis- sionaries sent out by the L. M. S., arrived at the BACKGROUNDS 203 Society Archipelago. Seventeen of the thirty mis- sionaries were left on Tahiti/ the largest island of the group. At first the outlook seemed bright. The king gave the missionaries his protection and allowed them to occupy a large house of bamboo, which had been erected a few years earlier for a visiting sea captain. By degrees, however, the missionaries came to realize the utter degradation of the natives, to whom nothing was sin but the omission of human sacrifice. Then a foreign ship dropped anchor in the harbor with the purpose of barter for food products, and, although the captain promised to waive his custom and allow the natives no firearms in exchange for his goods, several of the sailors deserted, came ashore, and stirred up the natives to such an extent that all but seven of the missionaries, fearing for their lives, sailed away with the ship. At Tonga, twelve miles west of Tahiti, a story of terrible sufifering and heroism was being enacted. From the first the islanders made life almost unen- durable for the missionaries by petty persecutions. Then came warfare between hostile tribes. Five of the missionaries escaped to a cave by the seashore, where they waited for days for a passing ship. The three remaining labourers were slain by natives at the door of the mission-house. A single missionary, sta- tioned on Santa Christina, was finally obliged to aban- don the field, so that in the year 1800 there were left in the South Seas only seven of the Society's repre- sentatives — five men and two women — who laboured faithfully on in the island of Tahiti. iln 1863 the mission on Tahiti was given over to the Paris Missionary Society, which maintains four stations and twelve out-stations with about four thousand five hundred communicants. 204 BACKGROUNDS Besides the missionaries of the L. M. S. at work in the islands of the Pacific, the year 1800 found Van der Kemp labouring in South Africa. He, too, was a foundation-builder, and all that story of bitter sor- row and renewed faith and consecrated labour — a uni- versity man among one of the lowest of nature peoples — belongs chiefly to the later period. In Scotland, in 1709, a Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge was organized, which sup- ported David Brainerd in his labours among the In- dians of the North American colonies. Scotland's first missionary society, however, accomplished little marked work, for even Brainerd's labours were not of continuing value. Yet the inspiration of this heroic life led Jonathan Edwards to devote his last years to the Indians of Stockbridge, and it was through reading Brainerd's Journal that Henry Martyn went to the Mohammedans of Asia, while for the great Founder of Modern Missions this wonderful life was a deter- mining and stimulating force. The year following the founding of the L. M. S. two societies were formed in Scotland, the Scottish and the Glasgow Missionary Societies, and these for work purely foreign. It was at the Church Assembly of this year (1796) that the venerable Dr. Erskine stood forth before the opponents of the work with " Rax me that Bible," and, when the book was brought, read aloud the " marching orders of the Church," while fear came upon all that were assembled. Truly, when we consider these humble beginnings, we must acknowledge that the nineteenth century has been one of more marvellous achievement than any other since that glorious morning-time, — the Age of Heroes. f iil\ ♦.nV' . -^ '""' to others. " He holds on firmly to some thread of life — (It is the life to lead perforcedly) Which runs across some vast distracting orb Of glory on either side that meagre thread, Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet — So is the man perplexed with impulses, ' It should be ' balked by ' here it cannot be.' " * What a grand missionan,- campaign that had been in the home country. Almost it seemed that the little peninsula was to be lifted out of itself, glorified and transformed, and made the messenger of the Most High. No one will ever read the hidden page or ever know what marvels the love of Christ might have wrought in Europe, had the ministers of God conse- crated themselves to the task of carrying on the work so strangely begun. As it proved, they did not even know its meaning. With such success at home, no wonder that Francis became possessed with a great longing to carr}' the good news to other peoples. Tn the year 121 2 he sailed for Syria to preach to the Infidel, but the pros- pect of an indefinite delay in Slavonia induced him to turn back. Again, a few years later, he set out for Spain to preacli to the Moors, but he fell ill and this *"An Epistle," Robert Browning. 216 "THE LITTLE BROTHER" mission also ended without results. Finally, in 12 19, Francis accompanied an army of Crusaders sailing for Egypt. A great number of Brothers came to him. at Ancona, the port of departure, but there was room on the ships for only a few of these enthusiastic missiona- ries. Unwilling to cause any of them pain or to arouse jealousy, Francis called a little child and bade him indicate the eleven friars who should be allowed to undertake the journey. The Crusaders were besieging Damietta. Some time during those long months Francis succeeded in finding his way to the Sultan, by whom, despite the hostilities of the moment, this sincere lover of souls was received with all kindness, and after a few days returned to the camp under Moslem safe conduct. Damietta surrendered to the Christians November 5, 12 19, after a siege which had lasted many months. The scenes which followed the taking of the city, like so many others in those so-called Holy Wars, are a blot upon Christian annals. These horrors, together with the evil lives of many of the Crusaders, sorely wounded the true-hearted Francis, and, realizing how fruitless all missionary effort must be with the living example of the Crusaders to disprove his words, he departed for Syria to visit the scenes of his Lord's earthly life. The return of Francis to Italy was follow^ed by a rude awakening. The old, old desire for property and for a system of monastic discipline was beginning to be heard among some of the more recent disciples, and was urged very earnestly by the Church. The lay brotherhood, essentially missionary in its character, was in danger of becoming a monastic order, with all attendant evils. The very humility of the saint was ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI 217 against the maintenance of his ideals. Cardinal Ugo- lino presented his case strongly. Was not the Church's head Christ's representative on earth? Yet Francis was setting his own interpretation of gospel teaching over against that of the Venerable Father at Rome. And what had been the result but dissension ? It was hard for a sensitive soul to withstand the re- bukes of a friend and to go on believing in his own superior intuition. For the time, therefore, Francis yielded and in 1220 gave over the leadership of the Order to Peter di Catana. A new Rule, far fuller in detail than the first and omitting altogether the instruc- tions to the Brothers to carry nothing with them on their evangelistic tours, was soon issued. Thereafter, almost to the time of his death, the exuberant joy which had transfigured this devout follower of the Christ was gone. The renunciation of his ideal of poverty for the Order was a death blow. For to him this meant renunciation of the true heart-following of the Master, that giving up of all things which hold the soul back to earth. To the very end he kept the ideal for himself and rejoiced to find many still faithful to the principles of those early days.^ Gradually weakness fell upon Francis. He re- turned to St. Damian for a visit with the Sisters and, among the flowers and olives of the monastery garden, where they erected for him a shelter of reeds, he com- posed the Canticle of the Sun. The old joy had re- turned. A year later, at the Portiuncula, he crossed 1 Setting aside Francis' economic theory, which would seem untenable in our day, can we imagine even faintly the possible results from the realization of his spirit of Christian love and brotherhood in business life and in the settlement of labour problems ? S18 "THE LITTLE BROTHER" those boundaries which in life had hardly kept him from the immediate presence of his Lord. Those last days were spent in singing, for to Francis death was a joyous beginning, not an end. Not long before the final passing they read to him the gospel lesson, words which were so fitting a picture of his own life : " Be- fore the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that his hour was come to go from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them even to the end." One of the most beautiful characters of all time, St. Francis of Assisi belongs to every church and nation ; for he is the embodiment of one of the great cardinal principles of all true Christianity. As only few have understood, he understood the great, compassionate heart of the Master. He lived not unto himself, but unto others. The very mistakes he made, though bearing the tinge of the century in which he lived, were the outcome of his fear of losing the Christ out of life. Like those earlier apostles of the western isles, he spent his whole life in serving, and one must believe that the great joy of heaven for this lover of the Christ has been the eager watching of the growth upon earth of his Lord's kingdom of peace and goodwill and that somewhere he is still serving. One cannot imagine this messenger of joy happy, even among the Blessed, without a part in his Lord's work. Ill A KNIGHT OF OLD SPAIN Raymund Lull " He was a verray parfit gentle knight." — Chaucer. " He who loves not lives not ; he who lives by the Life cannot die." — Raymund Lull. AT the hour before the gloaming, wandering in the chapels of ancient abbey or cathedral or ■ in the tranquil seclusion of some village church of Norman or early Gothic time, you have, perhaps, come upon the worn effigies of mailed knight and fair lady at rest after life's fitful fever. In a moment the grey walls faded away, and you were living again in the old chronicles. Against a background of the hearthfire's ruddy glow, the wail of the winter wind, and the white flutter of flakes against the window pane, you knew those old romances and adventure tales, all their harsher features smoothed away by the poet's tender touch. And it was better so; for it is God's way. He alone knows how great is the beauty lying at the heart of our old world, how much of all that seems wrong and ugly is a crude expression of noble gifts in natures as yet but half grown up into the stature one day to be theirs. And so He chooses that His best interpreters shall paint life in the violet tints of distant mountain ranges or with the softening 219 220 A KNIGHT OF OLD SPAIN veil of twilight mystery — with the charity that trans- figures whatever it touches. The chivalry of court and castle, the glow and the splendour which would to-day, perchance, be put to better uses, form a poetry of life which is a rich gift from by-gone centuries. The wonder and the imagination of childhood the really great soul never loses in the march of the years. Conquest — the soul was meant for that, and for beauty and grandeur and splendour. Oxily with succeeding ages come new interpretations of all that glow of colour that here or elsewhere has satisfied every true soul. At its highest the old-time chivalry was a quest for this poetry of heroic and courteous living. Those knights of the old days fought and loved with all the ardour of youth and too often with its cruelty. Yet in many of them, one must believe, aspiration for good as they knew it never died. In the silent church they sleep with hands folded in prayer, a symbol of peni- tence and faith. " Their good swords rust, Their souls are with the saints, we trust," long ago entered into the glory and the beauty after which they felt blindly in centuries when not the word of God, but superstition, was guide. In every age, nevertheless, there are souls which penetrate deeper into God's truth than the multitude of their fellows. They behold and in some measure attain to heights which the struggling mass of hu- manity will reach, mayhap, only in centuries. Such a one was the Little Brother of Assisi. Such a one also was Raymund Lull, who, in an age still thrilling with the challenge of the Crusades, and with the more immediate strife of Christian ard Moor in Spain, RAYMUND LULL 221 learned the meaning of knighthood as the Christ taught it, and from a brilliant but corrupt Spanish court set out on a life-long crusade having for its pur- pose the winning to his Lord, by reason or by per- suasion, of the Moslem world across the blue Mediter- ranean. More than five hundred years before Henry Marty n began preaching to the Mohammedans of In- dia, this man with the prophet vision apprehended the well-nigh forgotten truth that not by might nor by power, but by more peaceful means must the Kingdom of God and the knowledge of His Christ be spread abroad throughout the world. Thirty years before the close of the sixth century there was born among the rocks and sands of Arabia a wild Bedouin destined to become the Prophet of Islam. A " swift-handed, deep-hearted " race were these Arabians, true sons of the desert, whom Nature had surrounded with a desolate grandeur and in whom she had bred a fierce and untamable courage. Through their isolation from the world they had re- mained idolaters, though in the Prophet's day with lit- tle enough religion of any kind. Even here, however, Christianity had probably its converts, as had also Judaism. Mohammed, born of a noble house, but early losing both parents and grandparents, became a keeper of herds, in the solitary fastnesses developing a certain meditative and questioning attitude which perhaps accounts for his later " revelations." " The great mystery of existence," says Carlyle, " glared in upon him with its terrors, with its splendour. . . . From of old, a thousand thoughts in his pilgrimings and wanderings, had been in this man : What am I ? What is this unfathomable Thing I live in, which men 222 A KNIGHT OF OLD SPAIN call Universe? What is life? What is death? What am I to believe? What am I to do? . . . There was no answer. The man's own soul and what of God's inspiration dwelt there had to answer." And for the most part the Prophet found his way into his strange, wild monotheism for himself, and gave his re- ligion the image of his own soul, the soul of an Arab sheik, whose God is a mighty ruler, a deity of sublime majesty, like the stern vastnesses of his desert home, but in ethical and paternal attributes not even the Jehovah of the most remote ages. Propagated by the sword, the faith of the Prophet in the years following his death reached far into the heart of Asia and threw its crescent westerly along the northern shores of Africa in a long curve into the Spanish peninsula. Charles Martel, on the field of Tours, stayed the Moors in their northward advance. Charlemagne pursued them beyond the Pyrenees, giv- ing mediaeval Europe material for the Chanson de Roland. Step by step the Spanish knights of Leon and Castile won their way southward, though not for more than a century and a half after Raymund Lull's day was the last Moorish stronghold, Granada, wrested from its Saracen possessors. With their conquests territorially had gone also intellectual activity, and in those years of darkness and ignorance it was the Mos- lem who kept alight the lamp of learning. To win this folk from their half-pagan, half-Hebrew faith to the fuller, grander religion of the Christ was the quest on which the Knight of Majorca set forth in that far-off thirteenth century, and it is this same Moslem world which to-day, six centuries after Lull's time, remains the great problem before which our mis- sion boards have been all but helpless. RAYMUND LULL 223 Among the flowers and palms and fruits of Ma- jorca, beneath skies of the bluest blue and by the sea breezes of the beautiful bay of Palma, Raymund Lull grew to young manhood in a home furnished with mediaeval splendour and luxury. His father was a native of Catalonia, a province of eastern Spain. When in 1232 the Balearic Islands, once the home of Roman colonists, but for many years an independent Moorish kingdom, expelled the Saracens under the leadership of James of Aragon, the elder Lull fought on the side of the Christians. He was rewarded for his services with an estate near Palma, where his dis- tinguished son was born in 1235 and where to-day the great missionary agitator rests in peace in the Church of San Francisco. Grown to manhood. Lull became seneschal at the court of James the Second, King of Aragon. Un- awakened as yet to higher things, the young knight lived the life of those around him. But one surmises that the hollowness and vanity of the brilliant but dis- solute court atmosphere sometimes oppressed this man of splendid mental and moral possibilities. Visions even in a thirteenth century do not come to a wholly unprepared mind. And it was a vision of the dying Christ, looking down from the cross with compassion- ate and reproachful gaze, that led Raymund Lull away from the temptations of the court, back to his native Palma. As with St. Francis, so the conversion of this knight of Old Spain was gradual in its development; but few of a later time have come into a more simple, true fellowship with the Christ than Raymund Lull at last attained to, and no meditations of the mediaeval age are so Protestant in atmosphere as his writings, while in his dauntless endeavours for the inauguration 224. A KNIGHT OF OLD SPAIN of a crusade of love, having for its purpose the evan- gehzation of the Moslem world, he has become the honoured of all time. It was the story of St. Francis that gave Lull the final impetus for his great work. With true mediaeval devotion, he followed the Assisan saint's example to the letter, selling his great possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor. Of his wealth he reserved only enough for the support of his family, with whom he associated himself in the covenant of consecration which he drew up at this time, " To Thee, Lord God, do I now offer myself and my wife and my children and all that I possess; and since I approach Thee humbly with this gift and sacri- fice, may it please Thee to condescend to accept all that I give and offer up now for Thee that I and my wife and my children may be Thy humble servants." As mediaeval chivalry demanded of the candidate for knighthood a long period of vigil and prayer on the eve of entrance into the Order, so when this knight of a nobler service entered upon his great quest he gave himself to a nine years' preparation period, dur- ing which he mastered the Arabic language and learned many lasting lessons in the school of the Christ. It was all so new to him, this life of the spirit, that one cannot question his need of those months of seclusion. When at last Lull was ready to enter the lists against Islam, it was with a new spiritual stature, while, in the acquirement of the language of the Koran, he had armed himself with a trusty weapon. The Mohammedan faith, against which this knight of Old Spain threw himself with all the ardour of me- diaeval chivalry, but with the weapons of Christian argument and persuasion, was far spread and deep- RAYMUND LULL 225 rooted in that thirteenth century. The Moors still held the half of Spain. In Africa and the East, Islam was daily increasing in power, full of a fearless con- fidence engendered of their defeat of the Crusading armies. During those years when the shadow of the sword darkened all the lands of Europe, Saracen schools had guarded the key of the treasure-house of ancient learning, and in Lull's day Arabic doctors of philosophy were no mean opponents before whom to throw down the gauntlet of disputation. On the other hand, Raymund Lull, inspired with the might of a great consecration and an ennobling love, and endowed by nature with subtle reasoning powers, which had been developed by education, became one of the great thinkers of his age, a man whose name stands high on the roll of mediaeval philosophers. The task to which Lull had given himself was the preparation of a volume setting forth the truths of Christianity so cogently that the Moslem world should be convinced and converted. Strange as it may seem, he regarded faith and reason as brethren. One sus- pects, indeed, that, had he lived in our day, he would have proved himself a warm friend of the devout leaders of our higher criticism. Being a child of his age, he endeavoured to prove Christianity a rational faith by a curious system, impossible except in that age of scholasticism. This book is the Ars Major, or Ars Generalis, which, we are told, contains most of the essentials of his philosophy. The Ars Major was completed in 1275. The next sixteen years Lull spent in lecturing upon his new science of religion and in agitation for the establishment of schools in which the Oriental languages should be taught with a view to missionary preaching and labours among the Saracens. 226 A KNIGHT OF OLD SPAIN He was seeking, and vainly seeking, to arouse the Church to a new Crusade — a Crusade of Christian love. Near the close of life he wrote, " I have la- boured forty-five years to gain over the shepherds of the Church and the princes of Europe to the common good of Christendom." Not much success attended his efforts. James the Second, at Lull's instigation, opened a missionary training institute at either Palma or Montpellier, — both cities were at the time under the jurisdiction of Aragon. But he longed for a general and well-or- ganized movement. It was at Montpellier, where this prophet of missions spent some years in study and teaching, that he wrote, " O Lord of Glory, if that blessed day should ever be in which I might see Thy holy monks so influenced by zeal to glorify Thee as to go to foreign lands in order to testify of Thy holy ministry, of Thy blessed incarnation, and of Thy bit- ter sufferings, that would be a glorious day, a day in which the glow of devotion would return with which the holy apostles met death for their Lord Jesus Christ." One other event remains to be recorded before we turn to Lull's first missionary preaching. He had carried his cause to the highest court of appeal, Rome, and with what result? He who should have read in the failure of arms the lesson of peaceful warfare, chose only to throw his whole influence into a vain attempt to awaken Europe's waning zeal for the Cru- sades. The hopes of Nicholas the Fourth were disap- pointed, Acre fell, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem came to an end, and the counter crusade he might have inaugurated remains to this day unfulfilled. Even as news of disaster in the East was reaching RAYMUND LULL 227 Italy, Raymund Lull was setting out from Genoa to preach the gospel to the infidel in North Africa. Per- haps in all mission annals there is record of no more daring deed. To venture boldly into the midst of a people exuberant with the joy that comes of the defeat of their foes, a people to whom apostasy meant death, and whose treatment of a Christian victim was often the refinement of cruelty, this required a more sublime courage and a stronger faith than is often found. And Lull himself faltered on the eve of sailing and twice returned to the city from the ship. Arrived at Tunis, this knight of the Christ summoned the scholars of Islam to a great Parliament of Religions, in which he pleaded " the lack of love in the being of Allah," which, to the Christian, is revealed in the Incarnation — the life and death of Him who " for us men and our salvation became man." This candid comparison of Islam and Christianity was not without results. Some were " almost persuaded " of the truth of the great philosopher's words, but authority intervened, for this zealous teacher must not be " allowed freely to expose the errors of Islam." Condemned first to death, and then to banishment, he succeeded in escap- ing from the returning galley, and taught three months secretly in Goletta, the port of the great Moslem city. Another period of fifteen years of preaching and writing was followed by a second journey to Africa. During the interim, he visited Armenia, that outpost against the Mohammedanism of Asia, espoused the cause of the Jews, and, with a truly modern spirit of toleration, proposed that the monastic orders lay aside their differences and unite in a campaign for the con- version of the Saracen. The second visit to North Africa was largely a repe- 228 A KNIGHT OF OLD SPAIN tition of the first, only that the scene was changed from Tunis to Bugia. Exhortation and disputation in the market-place, followed by imprisonment, make up the record. At the end of six months the aged missionary returned to Europe; but his burning zeal would not allow him to rest, and in August of 13 14 he find him again at Bugia. In this ancient city, founded by the Carthaginians, and in Lull's time one of the foremost commercial cities of the Mediterra- nean, Lull laboured secretly for nearly a twelvemonth, rejoicing in a little company of believers whom he had gathered on previous visits and, single-handed, en- deavouring to break down the impregnable walls of Islam. On a June day in the summer following his arrival in Bugia, the aged knight of the Christ ventured once more boldly into the market-place, preaching that Love which had become the guiding star of his own way. Moslem fanaticism was aroused by his daring speech. With one accord they set upon him, dragged him with- out the city gates, and stoned him to death. Thus he obtained the martyrdom which always gleamed so brightly before the mediaeval Christian. At a time when chivalry, the flower of feudalism, had been spending itself in the Crusades, Raymund Lull entered a higher knighthood, taking unto himself the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit of Love. And his was the nobler Order, an Order still open to all who will enter it. The crusade he preached is as yet but hardly begun. ^ In the solution of the problem of the conversion of the Moslem world there is need of all the prowess and daring of modern * Appendix I, note 5. RAYMUND LULL 229 knighthood. Yet this must be a campaign waged in the spirit of love and with the weapons of reason and persuasion — in a word, by a practical demonstration of all that is fine and high in our Christian faith and civilization. As we write these lines, European Chris- tian and Mohammedan Turk are just emerging from another long struggle, in which the Moslem has been driven still farther back toward his native Asia. It may be that, little by little, in the coming years he will be forced out of Europe, and even from the Holy Land. And a victory or defeat in one part or nation of Islam is felt to its remotest borders. Yet one re- members the words of Raymund Lull: "I see many knights going to the Holy Land beyond the seas and thinking that they can acquire it by force of arms ; but in the end all are destroyed before they attain that which they think to have. Whence it seems to me that the conquest of the Holy Land ought not to be at- tempted except in the way in which Thou and Thine apostles acquired it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears and of blood." " Missions to Moslems " — this is the judgment of that knight of the Moslem mission crusade, Samuel Zwemer — " missions to Moslems are the only Christian solution of the East- ern question, and of the Moslem problem everywhere. God wills it. Let our rallying cry be : ' Every strong- hold of Islam for Christ ! ' God wills it, therefore we must do it. God wills it, therefore He will accom- plish it. God wills it, therefore we will ask Him to do it speedily. ' Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done,' throughout the Moslem world." IV THE PROTECTOR OF THE OPPRESSED Bartholome de las Casas " They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak ; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think ; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three." — Lowell, " Stanzas on Freedom." " Religion, virtue, truth, what'er we call A blessing — freedom is the pledge of all." —Cow per, " Table Talk." ON the night of the third of March, 1493, a vio- lent storm was raging in the north Atlantic main, rolling long, angry billows landward to break with fury upon the coasts of the Spanish penin- sula. In the midst of the rain and the wind and the blackness, a small ship, hardly larger than a coasting vessel of our day, plunged and rose with the dark waters, its anxious helmsman straining the darkness for the reefs and crags which might be lying in wait for the wreck of his good ship and its precious freight. Farther than any of this land had ever yet ventured westward was come the caravel now buffeted by tem- pests, within sight almost of the desired haven, and 230 BARTHOLOME DE LAS CASAS 231 strange news it brought — news of distant shores that had been deemed hitherto the wild phantasies of a romantic brain. For this storm-driven ship was none other than the Nifia, bearing homeward the great Admiral Columbus from the new Indies of the West. After toiling all night through troubled waters, the Nina came next day into the river Tagus, and eleven days later dropped anchor in the little harbour of Palos, whence, with the Pinta and the Santa Maria, she had sailed for the New World in August of the preceding year. Three more voyages Columbus made, exploring the West Indies and sighting the mainland at the mouth of the Orinoco and along the coasts of Panama and Honduras. As the new century dawned, many explorers followed where Columbus had pointed the way. Hojeda, Vespucci, Pinzon, Balboa, Solis, Alvarado, Cortes, Quesada, and Pizarro are renowned for conquests of " unpath'd waters, undream'd shores." The West Indies, New Spain, the northern coasts of South America were brought into the view of Europe. In 15 13 Balboa, from the mountains of Panama, beheld the " great maine sea heretofore un- known to the inhabitants of Europe, Aphrika, and Asia," and later named by Magellan the Mare Pa- cificum. Meanwhile, Vasco da Gama had rounded the southernmost land of the Dark Continent and sailed on to India of the Ganges. Cabral, following Da Gama to Asia with twelve ships, visited the shores of Brazil, quite uninfluenced by the achievements of the Genoese explorer, but too late to gain honour as the discoverer of the New World. The three years of 15 19 to 1522 saw the world circumnavigated by Ma- gellan's ships. English, French, and Dutch seafarers 232 THE PROTECTOR OF THE OPPRESSED were exploring the eastern coasts of North America, while Spanish knights, at a tremendous cost of life, plunged into the tropic wilderness of the south and the desert solitudes of the southwest, building the foun- dations of the Empire of New Spain. In reward for their services, the explorers and their descendants were given repartimientos, or grants of land, with the right to employ forced native labour. And from the first the Indian fared ill at the hands of the Spaniard. Race temperament, the desire for quick gains, a climate that forbade arduous toil to the European and was enervating in effect, the great dis- tance from the seat of restraining authority, together with inherited prejudice, all combined to make the encomcndero a hard and even cruel master. Though in theory the Spanish government discountenanced the enslavement of the Indian, in reality the Spanish ad- venturer, far from home and intent upon amassing wealth, was, regardless of law, constantly enriching his plantations and recruiting men for the mines or the sugar mills from the smaller islands and the mainland. And all this was done with the specious excuse of civilizing and Christianizing the Indian. The cry of agony went up to heaven from these Spanish colonies, and in God's own time there was raised up for this suffering people a champion of true knightly valour and prowess. When, on that August day of 1492, the Italian woollen weaver's son sailed out from Palos harbour into the unknown waters of the sunset, among the dat- ing men on shipboard was a Spaniard from Seville, Antonio de las Casas. In the homeland Las Casas left a son, then a lad of sixteen, destined to go down in history as the Apostle of the Indies, " the Lloyd BARTHOLOME DE LAS CASAS 233 Garrison of Indian rights in the New World." The younger Las Casas received his education at the Uni- versity of Salamanca, at that time the chief seat of learning in Spain. At the age of twenty-four he joined Columbus on the great explorer's third voyage to the New World. Four years later he was ordained priest, the first in America to receive such ordination. After the reduction of Cuba, Las Casas, with his friend, De Renteria, received a repartimiento on the southern shore of the island, and, though a priest, devoted him- self to amassing wealth from the mines by means of his Indian dependents. Very occasionally he per- formed the offices of his Church, and his kindly nature made him a more reasonable master than his neigh- bours, but not yet were the eyes of his understanding opened. It was on the Feast of Pentecost, 15 14, that the man who for more than fifty years was to wage a noble warfare in behalf of the oppressed Indian of the West Indies and New Spain, heard the call to higher service. The words of the day's lesson came to him with pecu- liar illuminating power: " He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, his offering is ridiculous: and the gifts of unjust men are not accepted. " The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked : neither is he pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices. " Whoso bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor doeth as one that killeth the son before his father's eyes. " The bread of the needy is their life; he that de- fraudeth him thereof is a man of blood. " He that taketh away his neighbour's living slayeth 234 THE PROTECTOR OF THE OPPRESSED him; and he that defraudeth the labourer of his hire is a bloodshedder." ^ With Las Casas to know was to do. Promptly he gave over his repartimiento, for if he would preach to others he must be free himself of the evil system. His friend De Renteria sympathized with him in this step, and it was decided that Las Casas should return to Spain to lay before the government the sufferings of the oppressed natives. Arrived in the homeland, Las Casas found his way beset with difficulties. The Bishop of Burgos and Lope de Conchillos, at this time the chief councillors in West Indian affairs, both held Indians " in reparti- miento." Nevertheless, Ferdinand gave audience to Las Casas and promised to do what he could toward remedying conditions. Unfortunately, the Spanish sovereign did not live to carry out his promises, leav- ing as successor a boy of sixteen.- At the death of Ferdinand in January, 1516, Las Casas carried his plea to the newly-appointed regent. Cardinal Ximenes, who was moved by the report of these cruelties and lent his influence to better legislation and a more strin- gent enforcement of law. For the latter purpose he chose Jeronimite monks to accompany Las Casas to the West Indies. Perhaps the Cardinal did not know his men, perhaps he did not understand how universal and intense would be the opposition, and how necessary it was that this mission should be placed in the hands of persons of unbending fidelity. Before the Fathers left Spain, their minds had been poisoned by agents from the colonies so that they con- * From the Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus 34 ; 18-22. 2 Charles I of Spain. In 1519 elected Emperor under title of Charles V. BARTHOLOME DE LAS CASAS 225 trived to sail on another vessel from that on which Las Casas returned to America. After their arrival they showed great repugnance to an active prosecution of the Spanish officials and the suppression of the re- partimiento system, although endeavouring to make the lot of the Indian easier by giving them to those whom they deemed merciful masters. No wonder that Las Casas was sorely disappointed at the outcome of his first visit to Spain. He had secured the intervention of the most influential figure in the Spanish Government — a temporal and ecclesi- astical prince — and had obtained legislation and orders sufficient to revolutionize the existing situation in the West Indies. But Ximenes was in Spain, and in all the New World there was no one to enforce the com- mands which had been issued. The Jeronimite Fathers were unwilling and Las Casas unable to com- pel those in authority to give up their Indians and enforce protective legislation. Las Casas determined to return to Spain. There was reason. Las Casas found, for the silence of the home government. His letters had not reached Ximenes. This may be suggestive to those who think the good Clerigo overzealous in his championship of the Indian. Perhaps the Spaniard of the West Indies did not care to have such incidents as the following brought to the attention of those in authority in Spain. The aiidiencia or court of San Domingo commissioned one Juan Bono to procure Indian labourers. Land- ing on the island of Trinidad, Bono told the natives that he was their friend and would remain with them. At his suggestion they erected a large house so con- structed that those within could not be seen from the outside. When the house was completed, Bono in- 236 THE PROTECTOR OF THE OPPRESSED vited /the Indians to enter, possibly implying a feast or some further work on the interior. The building being crowded, the Spanish soldiers drew swords and closed the doors. Many, attempting to escape, were hewn down, the rest were bound and conveyed to Espagnola. To complete this scene of horrors, Bono set fire to a cabin in which some of the Indians had taken refuge — men, women, and children perishing together in the flames. Hardly had Las Casas reached Spain when the death of Cardinal Ximenes occurred. Undismayed by this loss, the stalwart apostle of Indian rights succeeded in gaining the ear of the new Chancellor, and a col- onization scheme was agreed upon, which should re- move the necessity of Indian slave labour. But Las Casas had not reckoned with the Bishop of Burgos. Temporarily set aside, the death of Ximenes and later of the Grand Chancellor returned the subtle prelate to power. It was largely due to his influence that Las Casas was unable to send out the colonists whom he desired, and whom he had at first every prospect of recruiting from the better class of Spanish farmers. At the instigation of Fonseca,^ and unknown to the Clerigo, the lieutenant of Las Casas gathered a com- pany of undesirable emigrants " where the sun of Andalusia shines On his own olive-groves and vines " and sent these to the New World to turn adventurers and render matters even worse than before. One article of the recommendations, and their only evil feature, has, perhaps, been made too much of in * The Bishop of Burgos. BARTHOLOME DE LAS CASAS 237 history. I mean the clause giving permission to out- going colonists to take with them a certain number of negro slaves. " There is," says Dr. Warneck, " no foundation for the legend that the African slave trade was introduced by the Dominican, Bartolome de las Casas — the noblest figure of that time among the Spaniards of the West Indies. It was sympathy with the perishing Indians that led him to give this advice, and at a later time he bitterly regretted it as the great- est mistake of his life.^ But Las Casas certainly did not introduce slavery. Long before his time black slaves were no unfamiliar article of trade. It is to the Portuguese that the shame belongs of having first brought the ' black wares ' into the market. As far back as 1442 they brought slaves to Lisbon from the West Coast of Africa, and the Roman Catholic Church made it lawful." When his general scheme for substituting Spanish labour for the existing repartimiento system failed, Las Casas endeavoured to procure the grant of a dis- trict of land on the mainland of South America under a charter forever forbidding the repartimiento system. He agreed to obtain fifty men who should subscribe two hundred ducats each and afterward receive one- twelfth of the king's revenue from the province. The whole scheme was ridiculed by the Bishop of Burgos, who, however, was in the end obliged to submit and 1 He wrote, " This advice that license should be given to bring negro slaves to these lands, the Clerigo Casas first gave, not con- sidering the injustice with which the Portuguese take them, and make them slaves, which advice, after he had apprehended the nature of the thing, he would not have given for all he had in the world. For he always held that they had been made slaves unjustly and tyrannically : for the same reason holds good of them as of the Indians." 238 THE PROTECTOR OF THE OPPRESSED aid in preparations for the colony. So Las Casas at last had his way, and returned rejoicing to the West Indies, where, he said, he had left " the Lord Jesus Christ, suffering stripes, and ajfflictions, and cruci- fixion, not once, but thousands of times at the hands of the Spaniards, who destroyed and desolated the Indian nations." The good Clerigo arrived in America only to find an expedition setting out for the Pearl Coast to avenge the destruction of the Franciscan and Dominican mon- asteries at Cumana and Santa Fe de Chiribichi. Let us add that the massacre had been occasioned by the cruelties of a pearl-fisher, Ojeda, who had entrapped Indians for the slave trade. Las Casas would have wished to proceed at once to his province of Cumana to put an end to the revenge of the fleet, but the Spanish colonists, who delighted in opposing the Clerigo on every occasion, saw to it that no ship was forthcoming for the voyage. Las Casas, not to be thus put off, when news came of the cruelties of Ocampo's expedition, " went raging and with terrible sternness bore witness against this thing before the aiidiencia." ^ The righteous wrath of the man awed even the crafty members of the andiencia, who were glad to come to terms with the Clerigo, entering into a sort of partnership with him in the development of his province of Cumana, and furnishing vessels for his transport thither. But this scheme also was doomed to failure. Las Casas could not retain his men, the ships sailed back to San Domingo, and the pearl-fishers of the islands made constant predatory visits to the coast, embittering the already prejudiced natives. 1 Las Casas' own words. BARTHOLOME DE LAS CASAS 239 Finally Las Casas, against his better judgment, re- turned to San Domingo to obtain redress in the audicncia. Hardly was he gone when the Indians fell upon the mission, from which only a few escaped through many dangers to ships at Araya, across the bay. One would say that the shield was withdrawn, that the great Arm of Divine Protection no longer upheld. To Las Casas it may have seemed that the labours of these seven years for the oppressed Indian had been unavailing, that he had taken upon himself too great a battle. For eight years thereafter he is lost to the world in the Dominican monastery at San Domingo. After a little he formally joined the Order, and de- voted himself to writing. That the old zeal was not gone, however, is suggested by the fact that Las Casas was not allowed to preach in all that time, probably because of the desire of the brethren to preserve friendly relations with the townspeople, who might be alienated by the searching denunciations of the warrior-monk. When Las Casas again enters the arena against the oppressor of the Indians, the scene of conflict is trans- ferred to New Spain, whither he had accompanied the Dominican, Francisco de San Miguel. Some authori- ties tell us that he returned to Spain in 1530, that while there he obtained a royal decree forbidding Pizarro to enslave the Indians of Peru, and that he afterward carried the orders in person to the Land of the Inca. Whether or not this journey was undertaken, certain it is that, after establishing himself in a neglected monastery at Santiago de Guatemala, he circulated a treatise, Dc itnico vocationis inodo, in which he showed " first, that men were to be brought to Chris- 24.0 THE PROTECTOR OF THE OPPRESSED tianity by persuasion; and second, that without special injury received on the part of the Christians, it was not lawful for them to carry on war against infi- dels." The Spanish encomenderos retorted, " Try it; prove that you can bring the Indians to an accept- ance of our faith by the mere power of words." And Las Casas did try it. Now, for the first time, this big-hearted man, who had been far too busy seeking to obtain conditions under which the native races might believe in the Christianity taught them to take active part in their evangelization, turned his thought to the most intractable of the tribes of Central America. The home of this people was known to the Spaniards as " Tierra de Guerra," the " Land of War." For the conversion and peaceful subjugation of this land Las Casas entered into compact with the governor of Guatemala. It was agreed that if Tuzulutlan was brought to acknowledge the sovereignty of Spain and to pay tribute to His Majesty, Charles the Fifth, the annexed territory should not be given in encomienda to any Spanish subject. The manner of introducing the gospel into Tuzu- lutlan was unique. It would not do, of course, for a Spaniard to venture unarmed into this hostile coun- try. Accordingly, a poem giving expression to the belief of the Church was composed in the language of the Indians of the province, and carefully taught to Indian traders who were in the habit of penetrating the Land of War with Spanish goods. Of all the strange scenes in the history of Spanish colonization in America, none is, perhaps, more pic- turesque than the coming of these Indian merchants with their message of song. The cases of foreign novelties have been closed and set aside, the short twi- BARTHOLOME DE LAS CASAS 241 light is over, and a tropical night is closing down upon the tents of the traders and the palace of the Cacique close by. The crowd of curious folk still lingers and the traders, calling for the " teplanastle " (a native musical instrument), and producing timbrel and bells, begin to chant the verses prepared by the Dominican monks. For seven days this service of song is re- peated, while, in response to the eager questions of their listeners, the Indian merchants tell them of the Fathers from whom they have learned these new truths. The traders returned to Santiago accompanied by the Cacique's brother, who was sent to watch the life of the monks, and if convinced of their sincerity, to invite some of the " padres " to come as teachers to Tuzulutlan. Needless to say, the Indian prince could discover no fault at all in the establishment over which Las Casas ruled, and Luis Cancer returned with the prince to the Land of War, his stay among this wild folk resulting in the conversion first of the Cacique and then of his people. Later Las Casas him- self visited Tuzulutlan and gathered large numbers of the Indians out of their nomadic state into a new town, Rabinal. So the good Clerigo proved that even the most hostile of the Indian nations was capable of receiving Christianity and willing to accept it through the peaceful preaching of the monks. Twenty-four years had now passed since the good Clerigo first espoused the cause of the Indian and, though thwarted at nearly every point, he had yet made a vast impression for good upon the administra- tion by his unceasing and strenuous advocacy of mercy and justice. In 1539, Las Casas attended a chapter of the Dominican Order in the City of Mexico and, 242 THE PROTECTOR OF THE OPPRESSED with Luis Cancer, sailed for Spain, where he told the story of the conversion of the Land of War. During this visit to the homeland, Las Casas pre- pared " The Destruction of the Indies," a startling account of conditions in the New World by an eye- witness. When permission was obtained for its pub- lication twelve years later, the book aroused interest throughout Europe, and was translated into several languages. We must remember, too, that this pas- sionate appeal for recognition of the rights of a de- spised people was being written by a loyal adherent of the Roman Catholic Church at a time when Luther and the Emperor were vainly striving to come to- gether in compromise. What a grand meeting these two reformers must have had long ago — heroes who strove, the one for freedom of souls, the other for the freedom of a race. Las Casas returned to Mexico Bishop of Chiapa. Not that he had desired episcopal honour. Rather he had tried to avoid narrowing his labours to a single province — he who was father to the oppressed in all the New World. But Chiapa was remote from the seat of authority and easily able to set aside the new restrictions, and some one was needed to labour for their enforcement. This Las Casas undertook to do. " The episcopal dignity made no change in the ways or manners of Las Casas," Sir Arthur Helps has writ- ten.^ " In all respects his household was maintained in the simplest manner. He had lost all his books, which had been on board a vessel that had sunk in Campeachy Bay. This was a great grief to the good bishop, who, amidst all his labours, was a diligent stu- dent. . . . The members of his household could iSir Arthur Helps, " Life of Las Casas." BARTHOLOME DE LAS CASAS 243 often hear him sighing and groaning in his own room at night. His grief used to reach its height when some poor Indian woman would come to him, and, throwing herself at his feet, exclaim with tears, ' My father, great lord, I am free. Look at me; I have no mark of the brand on my face; and yet I have been sold for a slave. Defend me, you, who are our father.' " Finally Las Casas resolved to refuse absolution to those of his diocese holding slaves. The result was persecution of a vexing and illusive sort. Even the children were taught to ridicule him in the streets, and his own dean would not obey his orders. But Las Casas was too sensible a man to be long cast down over action which showed only a moral lack on the part of his persecutors. Courteous by nature, when a great wrong cried aloud for redress, he went into battle with his whole soul. The pity of it is that there were not more like Las Casas in Spanish America. To obtain justice the Bishop now journeyed to Hon- duras, where the Auditors of the Confines received him with impatience. By persistent efforts, neverthe- less, he was able to secure promise that an Auditor should be sent to Ciudad Real, the seat of his bishopric. The inhabitants of Ciudad Real, desperate at the thought of enforced justice, resolved upon a bold measure. Armed Indians were set to guard the ap- proach to the city and prevent the Bishop from enter- ing until he should promise to follow the moderate course of the other bishops of New Spain. But the Indian sentinels, when they saw Las Casas approach- ing, instead of opposing his advance, fell at his feet begging for his forgiveness. The Bishop, knowing that they would be punished for disobedience, bound them and made them follow as prisoners. Even this M4! THE PROTECTOR OF THE OPPRESSED act was wilfully misread, so angry were the citizens at the failure of their scheme. A riot ensued, filling the street in front of the Dominican monastery with a turbulent throng. " You see here the way of the world," one man taunted. " He is the saviour of the Indians, and look, he it is who binds them. Yet this same man will send memorials against us to Spain, declaring we maltreat them." Within a few hours, with true Latin impulsiveness, the spirit of the crowd had changed, men vying with one another in doing honour to the dauntless bishop. Still Las Casas was not able to accomplish what he desired. A rebellion was on in Peru; the old preju- dices against the Bishop were far from dead; the evil was deep-rooted, and, to crown all, the Emperor yielded and revoked the New Laws. Las Casas left Mexico for good, thinking that he could accomplish more if he were near the seat of authority. This was in 1547. Nineteen years later he died at Madrid, having spent the intervening period in combating the arguments of Sepulveda for the employment of force in the " conversion " of the Indians, and in obtaining from Philip II promise that encomiendas reverting to the Crown should not be again sold — a splendid vic- tory for his cause. When death came, he was labour- ing for the re-establishment of a suppressed court of justice in Guatemala. For more than fifty years he had striven " to prove the capacity of the Indians for becoming Christians and to obtain mitigation of the cruel treatment to which they were exposed." ^ And the Master said, " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me." ^Wilhelm Moeller, " History of the Christian Church." V FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD Jesuit Labourers " And slowly learns the world the truth, That holy life is more than rite, And spirit more than letter." — Whittier. " Sometime will the fellow soldiers know one another ; some day shall the long muster roll be called. Then will the Captain of our salvation gather all his children round Him." THE time is the early morning of the Feast of the Assumption, in the year of our Lord 1534; the place, a little church on the heights of Montmartre, the northern suburb of Paris. Seven men — a Navarrese, a Savoyard, a Castilian, a Toledan, a Portuguese, a Valentian, and a Basque — are gath- ered in the shadows of the gloomy crypt with the de- termined appearance of men about to seal a great de- cision. Mass over and the Communion administered, one of the group, a man of middle height, high fore- head, and piercing grey eyes, steps forward to take upon himself with much earnestness the vow of spiritual knighthood, promising to devote his life henceforth to Mary and her Son, to the Holy Catholic Church, and to the Pope. It is the Basque, Ignatius of Loyola. In turn, each of his companions binds himself with the same solemn vow. Then, under the 245 246 FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD shadows of the low vaulting, the worshippers kneel in silent devotion until the day has worn away to even- tide. Just as they are leaving the church, Loyola writes upon the altar the future motto of the Order, I. H. S. (Jesus Hominum Salvator), and the Society of Jesus has come into being/ Let us recall the condition of that European world in which these men were destined later to become so prominent. It was now fifteen years since Martin Luther had opened the long struggle with Rome by the posting of the Wittenberg Theses, and thirteen since at Worms he had defied Church and Emperor. In the January preceding the scene described above, the decrees of the Reichskammergericht requiring the restoration of church property and of the authority of the bishops had been formally set aside by the Protes- tant princes of Germany. In England, " the Defender of the Faith," the infamous Henry the Eighth, was soon to open the way for the Protestant faith by as- suming the temporal jurisdiction of the Pope in Eng- land and declaring himself supreme head of the Eng- lish Church. In Sweden, Gustavus Vasa had also, for political reasons, broken with Rome, and had begun the dissolution of the monasteries. In 1526 appeared a Swedish translation of the New Testament, and five years later the king raised a Protestant to the primacy of Sweden, In Denmark, the influence of the Refor- mation was steadily increasing and another year was to see the Lutheran king, Christian the Second, upon the Danish-Norwegian throne. The Netherlands, to be sure, were as yet chained by the might of the Im- perial Charles, but there were many of the new way * The formal organization belongs to a later time. As yet they called themselves Companions of Jesus. JESUIT LABOURERS 247 among the descendants of the freedom-loving Frisians. Even in a Latin country like France, and under the absolutism of Francis the First, great numbers were breaking away from long revered doctrines. So bold had these become that, in October of this same year of 1534, they uttered a public protest against the mass in placards, which were posted at all the street-corners and even affixed to the door of the king's apartments at Amboise. It was apparent, therefore, that if the Roman Cath- olic Church were to retain anything like its former prestige, there must be quick and decisive action. Jesuitism, the great force of this Counter- Re forma- tion, came to effect what the dying monastic orders could not hope to accomplish. Ignatius of Loyola, educated at the court of Ferdi- nand and Isabella, had been forced to renounce his chosen military career through injuries received at the defence of Pampeluna, and, turning in his unaccus- tomed idleness to more serious thoughts, became one of the most zealous and fanatical of Spanish Catholics. After some years, Loyola found himself pursuing a much-needed course of study in Paris, and here he gradually won the friendship and then the sympathy of the men who were to become his future co- workers. Prominent among these was the Navarrese, Fran- cisco de Xavier. While Loyola the youth was living in the royal household of Spain, the future " Apostle of the Indies " was yet a small lad in his mother's castle near Sanguesa, with the stir of the new ideas and the wider horizons which marked the beginning of the sixteenth century still far away from the secluded life under the towering mountain wall of the Pyre- 248 FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD nees.* But with the years came changes. Dr. Juan de Jassu, Xavier's father, died in 15 15, and though his widow still lived on in her ancestral fortress, little Navarre was full of war and rumours of war. That part of the province south of the Pyrenees soon be- came Spanish territory, and for purposes of pacifica- tion Cardinal Ximenes ordered all its fortresses razed. A boy of ten, Francis saw the commanding towers of his home destroyed under the direction of the Cardi- nal's men,^ only the family apartments being left in- tact. When Francis was nineteen, he went up to Paris for study, and a few years later received a lec- tureship in philosophy at the College de Beauvais. Three years after the meeting on Montmartre, Loyola and his companions were once more together, this time in Venice. The first object of their common vows had been missionary labour among the Turks, and in this Adriatic seaport they hoped to find passage for the East. Meanwhile they went from hospital to hospital, caring for the sick and, above all, for the leprous. In Venice, also, and later in other Italian cities, Loyola preached to the crowds which he gath- ered about him in the streets, but oh, how different a message from the simple, health-giving gospel given the common people in the life and words of the Assisan saint. Hindrances which prevented the little company of men calling themselves the Companions of Jesus from departing for the Holy Land led Loyola and two companions to Rome to offer themselves in service to the Pope. After much opposition, the papal bull, au- thorizing the new society, was issued Septemiber 27, iXavier was born April 7, 1506. 2 T. M. Cros, " St. Frangois de Xavier, sa vie et ses lettres." JESUIT LABOURERS 249 1540. The year following Its definite organization, the Society elected Loyola, General. He chose to scat- ter his flock in many countries, so to weave a subtle network of influence throughout the weakening boun- daries of Pontifical dominions, and in as yet uncon- quered lands, where the Black Cloaks might add large spheres of power to the tottering Catholic sovereignty. To England and Germany, to France and Spain and Portugal, the General sent his obedient servants by one and another means to build a strong foundation for future growth. Of the original thirteen members, Xavier alone was commissioned for service in the non-Christian world. In less than half a century's space, India had ad- vanced from the distant and misty outlines of a land known to the Europeans only through the caravan trader and the occasional and credulous traveller, into the clear light of reality, and already the Portu- guese flag flaunted its royal coat-of-arms above many an Oriental port which had opened its long-sealed gates to the sailor from beyond the seas. While Spanish galleons bore homeward the wealth of the Americas, the subjects of King John loaded their high-built mer- chantmen at Indian and Japanese ports with beautiful gems and delicate tissues and aromatics and dye-woods and costly perfumes. The capital of Portugal's Asiatic possessions was the important emporium of Goa, on the Malabar coast of India, a starting-point of caravan routes in the earlier days and a place of resi- dence for native princes. The Portuguese made of it an almost royal city, of which it could be said, " Who- ever has seen Goa need not see Lisbon." In this Oriental port, astir with commercial life, Francisco de Xavier arrived on the sixth of May, 250 FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD 1542, after a year and a month at sea. He was pro- vided with credentials appointing him Papal nuncio for India, and had behind him the authority of King John, who had asked Xavier's services of Loyola. For five months Xavier remained at Goa, visiting the hospitals and bringing back to a more devout faith and a purer life many of the Europeans who in a for- eign land had thrown off the shackles of religion and morality. With the native inhabitants of the country the work was more difficult, for, unfortunately, Xavier had not deemed it worth his while to master the strange tongue of the dusky folk to whom he had been sent. With the aid of assistants, he succeeded in rendering into the vernacular the several forms of prayer he con- sidered necessary for the salvation of his converts, and then, in October of 1542, set out southward. Through the villages of the Pearl Coast he journeyed toward Cochin, and even as far as Cape Comorin, ringing a bell to attract hearers, and when he had gathered a throng, speaking to them in a mixed tongue. At the close of his talk he presented rosaries to all who would kiss the blessed crucifix, and then invited the children to come to him for instruction in the Creed, the Pater Noster, the Confession, and the An- gelic Salutation. In 1544 he wrote, " So many people asked me to go to their houses to recite prayers over the sick, and the sick themselves came to me in such numbers that, without other labour, the recitation of these offices only would have occupied all my time, so that, to sat- isfy the devotion of those who called me to them or who came to me, and furthermore to teach the chil- dren, baptize, translate prayers, answer endless ques- tions, and bury the dead, became a burdensome work. JESUIT LABOURERS 251 ... In order that all might be satisfied, I employed the following expedient : I gave the children who knew the prayers charge of visiting the houses of the sick; there they gathered the members of the family and the neighbours; they all repeated the Credo several times, telling the sick person to believe and he would be healed ; then came other prayers. All the sick were visited in this way, and furthermore the Credo, the commandments, and the prayers were taught in the houses and on the squares." ' The quotation hardly needs comment. The sacraments, an assent to the teachings of the Church, and penances — these would seem to have been the essentials to salvation in Catholic thought. No wonder, then, that, through gifts, the pomp of ritual, and a military authority which destroyed the heathen idols and gave over to him for Christian service the temples in which they had been worshipped, he was able to make thousands of converts, sometimes bap- tizing whole villages in a day. Before he left Goa in 1549, he had laboured in all the districts under Portu- guese control in India and the adjacent islands, and had established several schools. Into these last native youth of high birth were forced, and not only so, but for those natives who rebelled against such wholesale conversion of their brethren, and who aided the pagan priests in seeking a revival of the old faith, Xavier desired to institute a miniature Inquisition at Goa. He had with him now a large number of helpers, who had been sent out at his request, and to these he left the continuance of the work in India, sailing for Japan seven years after his first landing at Goa. Two reasons led Xavier to Japan : first, the request iCros, " St. Frangois de Xavier, sa vie et ses lettres." 252 FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD of a daimyo asking the viceroy at Goa for teachers of the Catholic faith; and second, the plea of a Japanese exile, one Anjiro, afterward known by his baptismal name of Paul of the Holy Faith, who was instructed by the Fathers in the college at Goa. For a little more than two years, Xavier remained in Japan, winning far fewer converts, however, than in India. Yet his resourcefulness is even more apparent. Like his companions of a later day in America, he displayed a spirit of intrepid self-sacrifice. The journey to Kyoto was made through winter snows. Two months of travel on foot, over difficult roads, brought him to the royal city, only to find its streets desolated with internecine warfare. With no hope of obtaining an interview with Mikado or Shogun, and with almost no knowledge of the Japanese language, Xavier was forced to leave the capital in grievous disappointment. The days were long and weary, much speaking gave him chronic weakness of the throat, and the perform- ance of the baptismal rite often left him thoroughly exhausted. He literally wore out his life in the service to which he believed God had called him for the salva- tion of souls. Yet, with it all, Xavier is not to us of to-day so admirable a figure as that stalwart champion of the oppressed in our own America, who, in the suf- ferings of the Indian, saw his Saviour crucified afresh, and renounced wealth and honour to plead through a long lifetime the cause of a helpless people. Surely if Xavier the Jesuit has won the honour of the Prot- estant world, Las Casas should be remembered as one who understood the mind of the Master even as we also read His thought. From Bungo, also, Xavier was driven away by the opposition of the Buddhist priests. He now turned JESUIT LABOURERS 253 his thought to the estabHshment of the Christian re- Hgion in China; but finding that great empire closed to the ordinary traveller, returned to Goa for assist- ance. The next year, 1552, he once more set out, this time under the protection of a rich merchant, who hoped to open trade with the Celestial Kingdom. At Malacca the entire ship's company was arrested by a son of Vasco da Gama. After a stormy passage in a small boat, Xavier reached the coast of China, mak- ing his first stop at the island of San Chan, where he was forced to remain many weeks, seeking passage for the mainland. Exposure and unceasing labour had done their work, and on this lonely island, among a strange folk and without proper medical care, the brave missionary passed the bounds of this present life on the second of December, 1552. He died with the name of Jesus upon his lips, as it had so often been in life. For ten years he had laboured on the mission field, laying down his life at the comparatively early age of forty-six, after having given the world a nota- ble example of missionary heroism. Meanwhile, Portuguese and Spanish navigators and grandees were exploring and exploiting the lands of South America. By the treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, the continent was divided for colonization between the two nations, what is now Brazil coming under Portu- guese and western South America under Spanish con- trol. On the continent, as on the islands and in Mex- ico, the majority of priests and monks, who were to be found wherever flew the Spanish or Portuguese flag, and to whom was due the conversion of South America to Roman Catholicism, were in greater or less degree unworthy stewards of the Master's kingdom. 254 FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD The Jesuits, to be sure, strove for higher morals and stood for education of a certain sort. " Primarily, at least," writes Mr. Dawson, " the Jesuit purpose was altruistic, though the material advantages and the fascination of exercising authority were soon potent motives." ^ Nobrega conducted the first Jesuit missionaries to South America in 1549, and thereafter the black-robed priests went everywhere, bringing great numbers of the native South Americans into the Church of Rome. Their most remarkable conquest was made in Para- guay, where they built up a theocracy lasting until the expulsion of all Jesuits from Latin centres in 1767. The Indians of this " Christian republic " may have enjoyed kinder treatment than the Spaniard or Portu- guese afforded them elsewhere, but for this happiness they paid dearly, the missionaries, in true Jesuit fashion, exacting absolute obedience. The Indians were taught to receive commands kneeling and to kiss the garments of the Fathers reverently out of gratitude and honour to the men who stood before them in the place of God. Under the direction of the missionaries they cultivated the land, built houses and churches, learned weaving and lace-making, and became skilful in manuscript-copying. Yet it must be remembered that from the products of Indian labour the Jesuits gained increasingly large revenues and when the blow fell were owners of valuable estates. The results of Roman Catholic missions in South America may be read large in the immorality, the su- perstition, and the infidelity of the Latin America of to-day. Almost without exception, the Bible is un- read, and in many places it is forbidden. There is 1 Thomas C. Dawson, "South American Republics." JESUIT LABOURERS ^55 very little preaching in the churches and few Sunday Schools. The real Christ, the living Christ, is un- known to those who profess to be His followers. Yet the very hostility with which the Roman Catholic Church is regarded by the men whom it seeks to win — so different an attitude from the respect in which that Church is held in the United States — is proof, per- haps, that our neighbours of the South are looking out toward better things. When the Christ is truly lifted up in that great continent, whether by Catholic or Protestant, He will draw this doubting people unto Himself. Once more the scene shifts, and the luxuriant ver- dure of the tropics fades slowly into the more quiet tints of a northern landscape. A mighty river bears downward to the sea between shores dark to the water's edge with sombre forests of fir and of pine, of elm and beech and maple. Through the gloom of these woodland ways glide dusky figures of Huron or Algonquin warrior, taking their way silently to some bark-covered lodge by a distant water-course. Save for the rude buildings on the crags of Quebec, habita- tion of white man there is none. Yet here, with the first of the French, are the black-robed Jesuits, ready to give life itself for what they deem God's glory in this land of the sunset. So strange a belief is theirs, so simple their mind, so great their credulity often despite scholastic attainment, so much of superstition blends with Christian truth, so great a weight of em- phasis is laid on things we hold of lesser import. Nevertheless, to all time shall the stories of Brebeuf, of Jogues, of Garnier, and of Daniel thrill the reader like the music of flute and of drum calling the soldier 256 FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD to the field of strife, where brave men battle and die. Says the historian Parkman : " That gloomy wilder- ness, those herds of savages, had nothing to tempt the ambitious, the proud, the grasping, or the indolent. Obscure toil, solitude, privation, hardship, and death were to be the missionary's portion. He who set sail for the country of the Hurons left behind him the world and all its prizes." Perhaps the noblest and the most heroic of them all was Isaac Jogues, who, from a life of scholarly pur- suits in his native France, went out to the Canadian forests at the age of twenty-eight to suffer a living martyrdom before finally giving his life for his faith. The first years were spent in the Huron mission, on the shores of the Georgian Bay, in Ontario. Along forest ways, under a cold moonlight, or through the drifting storm, in the fierce heat of summer or the heavy downpour of November days, this dauntless missionary journeyed willingly from village to village and from tribe to tribe. But the most severe sufferings were yet in store for him. In the summer of 1642, with a band of In- dians and missionary recruits from Quebec, he was ascending the St. Lawrence when, on a sudden, among the islands of the Lake of St. Peter, the whizzing ar- rows of Mohawk enemies sang the death song for some of their number. Jogues might have escaped, but when he saw Goupil and Couture, his helpers from the mission-house, in the hands of the savages, he turned back and gave himself up to the attacking war- riors. And have we a finer act than this in all mis- sionary annals? The prisoners were carried to the country of the Mohawks, suffering greatly all the way down the River Richelieu and over Lake Champlain JESUIT LABOURERS 257 and Lake George, and at their journey's end tortured with all the means which savage ingenuity could de- vise. For days they lived in fear of being burned alive, as were their Huron companions. In the end Goupil was slain, Couture adopted into the tribe, and, after many months, Jogues succeeded in escaping to New Amsterdam, whence he was returned to France. One might suppose that these experiences would have satisfied his missionary zeal. Not so. Within a few months we find the intrepid labourer again sail- ing for his perilous life in the wilderness, having ob- tained permission of the Pope to perform mass, from which, according to Roman law, his lacerated hands debarred him. Two years later he was, at the com- mand of the government, once more among his old- time foes, the Mohawks, on the Mission of the Mar- tyrs. He had said, " I shall go and shall not return." On the eighteenth of October, 1646, in the forests near Lake George, he was set upon by a war band, made captive, and put to death after fearful torture. One is glad to remember that this intrepid missionary vol- untarily went forth to his life of hardship in the wil- derness. Not the command of his General, but his own wish led him to the country of the Hurons. VI HEROES OF THE ICE-BOUND NORTH The Egedes in Greenland *' Say not the struggle naught availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain ; 9 • * • • » — For while the tired waves vainly breaking Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main." — Arthur Hugh Clough. THE Northmen were ever a venturous race. The call of the tossing, tumbling waves, now hurrying down in almost human rage upon the black viking ships, now swept across by summer winds and lulled to treacherous quiet, — that mysterious, haunting, resistless call, — fell early upon the ears of the Norse lads in their bleak northern home, and lured them forth to become kings of the sea and conquerors of distant lands. Among the rocky Scotch islets, by Irish coasts, or breasting the seas to plant a new Scan- dinavia in far-away Iceland, their long, pointed craft became an all too familiar object to the anxious watcher, and even when, a century and a half after Rollo's landing in France, his descendants had become a peaceable, law-abiding folk in their new home, the old longing for adventure and conquest was still strong upon them, and the mother duchy sent forth her sons 258 THE EGEDES IN GREENLAND 259 to win new dominions to southward and to north- ward. Strangest of all these tales is the record of their lost settlements in Greenland. Already had the Scan- dinavians laid the foundations of the Icelandic republic when a venturous sailor from among them, so say the sagas, on a westward voyage, sighted the cliffs of a new land. Gunnbjorn's discovery was told in the fire- lighted halls of the Norse warriors, and, though no effort was then made to explore this unknown land lying away toward the polar sunset, the sea-rover's story was not forgotten, and when, years afterward, the great jarl Eric was exiled from his island home for blood revenge, it was toward the land of the snow cliffs that he turned his dragon prow. For three years he braved the lurking dangers of this bleak north- land, exploring the islands of the east coast, pene- trating its fjords and faring from point to point on the mainland. No pleasant exile, one would think, these journeyings among broken armies of ice giants and under the gleam of the Valkyrs' armour,^ this sojourn beneath the shadow of the snow mountains of Niflheim. Perhaps impatience at restraint and the thought of his old enemies, perhaps the Norse love of venturing into the unknown, led Eric, on his return to Iceland, to paint the land of his exile with colours so glowing that he gained his desire and sailed back to Greenland with ships and men and cattle for the found- ing of a colony. Again the old story of danger and difficulty. The sea and the ice claimed their toll of mariners daring enough to invade their kingdom, and of twenty-five ships but fourteen reached Greenland. Yet the lure of the North drew other companies from 1 The aurora borealis. 260 HEROES OF THE ICE-BOUND NORTH Iceland, and even from distant Norway, and trade sprang up and homes were built, and by and by Chris- tianity was introduced, stone churches erected, and a bishop called. While the spirit of adventure was yet upon these bold seafarers, was made that summer voyage which first discovered to the European the shores of America and won for Eric's son the name of Leif the Lucky. And now other voyages were made by Thor- wald and Thorstein, Leif's brothers, and settlements attempted which came to naught, for Vinland was destined to remain yet many centuries unexplored and uncolonized. When at last the continent which Leif had discovered was found again and all Europe was ringing with news of lands beyond the Atlantic, these Norse settlements in Greenland had disappeared and the land itself was almost forgotten. Did not the ruins of their stone buildings remain, and runic tomb- stones and Christian burial slabs, a proof of Scandi- navian colonization, one might be tempted to believe the narratives of the Icelandic sagas mere tales of the imagination. Of the fate of these far-away Northmen probably little will ever be known. The plague which swept over Europe in the fourteenth century interrupted the Greenland trade, and only fitful communication was carried on afterward, and that for a little time. There is note of a bishop being sent them in 1406, but no record of his arrival. Thereafter the northern colony is hidden in the mists of oblivion. Whether, deserted by their countrymen, they were fallen upon by the sav- age Greenlanders of the east coast and slain, or mingling with the Eskimos, were more gradually lost to Scandinavia, is an unanswered and perhaps unan- THE EGEDES IN GREENLAND 261 swerable question.^ Nevertheless, it was the memory of these same lost settlers that, after the passage of centuries, brought again the gospel to Greenland and won its Eskimo inhabitants to the Christ. In the year 1707 there was ordained in the parish of Vaagen, in the Lofoten Islands, a Norse pastor who, for dauntless determination and heroism, deserves a place in every narrative of missionary beginnings. Hans Egede was born on the island of Senjen, off northern Norway, on the thirty-first of January, 1686. From study in Denmark, he came to the Lofotens to preach, and, looking off from the noble scenery of these islands, over the seas sailed by his warrior ances- tors, came to think much upon Norway's past, and especially upon the story he had read in the old sagas of Scandinavian settlements in Greenland. Perhaps, somewhere across the sun-touched waters, they were still living among the ice mountains and, lost to home influences, had forgotten their old-time faith. Was it not, then, for the true patriot and the true Christian to seek out these distant countrymen and give them again the message of peace? Not that Mr. Egede as yet dreamed of going himself to seek the lost. But he addressed petitions to the bishops of Trondhjem and Bergen and took pains to collect what information he could concerning Greenland. The bishops were kind in their answers, but let the matter drop there. Not only indifference and delay, but opposition, and that of a subtle sort, confronted the good pastor in his desires for the welfare of Greenland. For now the thought was being forced upon Mr. Egede that if the mission were to become a reality, he must go in person. But the Norwegian pastor had wife and children and * Appendix I, note 6. ^62 HEROES OF THE ICE-BOUND NORTH relatives to care for, and the living at Vaagen was a good one. When family and friends urge the weight of one's responsibility and paint the terrors of the sea and the folly of giving up the known for the unknown, how can one help yielding? So the days slipped away, but endeavour as he would to close his ears to their cry, Hans Egede could not forget the men of the distant west. He prayed much and at last the beginning of the answer came. Mrs. Egede was won to his cause, and when a brave Chris- tian woman supplements her husband's efforts, all dif- ficulties at last fade away as the snow before the sunshine of spring. To be sure, years of delay and opposition were yet to intervene between the glad de- cision and the accomplishment of the mission, but the end was now certain. Pastor Egede's first step after his wife's conversion to his plans was to address a memorial to the recently- established College of Missions at Copenhagen. The matter appealed to its directors, but Mr. Egede was again put off by the Norwegian bishops, while the peo- ple of Vaagen sought to turn him from his purpose, first by persuasion and then by derision and defama- tion. Wearying at length of so much delay, Mr. Egede resigned his living and travelled to Bergen with his family. This was in 1718, ten years after his first conception of a mission to Greenland. Hans Egede at the great seaport of Bergen, seeking ships to renew the Greenland trade and to carry the knowledge of God to the frozen north, is a heroic figure. Nor less heroic is the picture of his noble wife. An assured income had been renounced for a future doubtful enough, because no one cared to invest money in chimerical schemes. Rumours had THE EGEDES IN GREENLAND 263 come of a ship wrecked on Greenland coasts and of the cannibalism of the natives. The good citizens of Bergen, practical and thrifty, looked upon the pastor and his wife as hopeless visionaries. Nor can we wonder at the inability of these Northern Christians to understand the noble purpose of the Egedes. Of the efforts made in America for the Indians little would be known in Norway. The Moravian Church was not yet gathered out of Catholic Austria, and its missions were undreamed of. Only two of the fore- runners of modern missions had as yet ventured out upon the great deep. Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Henry Pliitschau had sailed from Copenhagen for India in 1705, and only the year before the arrival of Pastor Egede at Bergen, Ziegenbalg visited Den- mark and told the story of his labours in Tranque- bar to throngs of eager listeners. To Copenhagen, therefore, Mr. Egede resolved to go. How the heart of this humble Norwegian pastor must have leaped for joy when, on reaching Denmark, he received a summons to lay his plans before his sov- ereign. The result of the interview was a royal com- mand to the Bergen magistrates to look into the feasi- bility of renewing the Greenland trade and to return a report to the court. Cheered by the sympathy of the king and of the members of the mission college, Mr. Egede returned to Bergen believing that a way was at last opening before him. But his faith was to be tried yet further. The information which was forwarded to Copenhagen was unsatisfactory, and even of such a character as to set Mr. Egede in an unfair light. And so yet another avenue was closed. There comes a time when, disappointment added to disappointment, it seems as if the soul must sink be- 264 HEROES OF THE ICE-BOUND NORTH neath the weary burden. It would not be surprising to find Mr. Egede, this supreme hope shattered, return- ing to his old vocation. But the sturdy Norwegian was cast in a different mould, and the blood of the old vikings was yet to bring victory. The pastor's next move was to address himself personally to mer- chants who could help him accomplish his purpose. From Hamburg came an offer of substantial aid and the prestige of a well-known name gave a sudden popu- larity to the Greenland project, but the Danish mer- chant withdrew his offer and the mission seemed far- ther away than ever. Finally the sheer courage and determination of the man won the hearts of a few wealthy Christians. It would do no harm, so they doubtless reasoned, to in- vest a little money in the undertaking, although the outcome of the proceeding was still regarded as doubtful. Money enough was raised to fit out three ships and, on the second of May, 1721, Hans Egede sailed with his family out of Bergen for the icebound lands of the polar west. Just before leaving Norway he received from the king an appointment as pastor of the new colony and missionary to the native Green- landers, with a salary of sixty pounds. It is a brave picture that our thought paints of this Norwegian pastor's wife. As the bold outlines of the beloved homeland fade away on the distant hori- zon, we watch her turn resolutely again to her four little ones to quiet them with a mother's comfort. At that moment a new chapter of life is begun. The old days are forever over, for Mrs. Egede will never again look upon her native mountains. When a month had passed the ships sighted the southern shores of Greenland, but the new land re- D O o a THE EGEDES IN GREENLAND 265 ceived them inhospitably, and storm and fog closed in upon them. One of the vessels was separated from the others and, with masts torn away, returned to Norway. And now, within a few miles of their haven, they are shut off by vast fields of floating ice, with the storm increasing in fury. Attempting to penetrate a narrow opening in the ice, one of the ships is injured and, as night comes on, the white walls close about them. Are all those years of dauntless faith to end at last in shipwreck on a lonely coast ? Wearily the hours drag on, and then, out of the darkness and the fog, dawns a new day and, marvel of God's care, far as eye can reach, only floating fragments of ice, in an open sea, with on the eastward horizon the broken coastline of Greenland. Eight days later they disembark on a small island at the opening of a fjord known as Ball's River, and set about building them a house of earth and stone. Disappointment, however, seemed to have sailed with them to Greenland. All the long way they had come to bring back to the Christ the descendants of the brave Norsemen. But in these small, dark-haired, olive-skinned Greenlanders, dull of understanding and uncouth in manner of life, sole dwellers of this deso- late northland, they saw no trace of Norse blood. Only here and there, as they went about exploring, the traders would come upon some old church tower or the fallen stones of buildings that must once have, sheltered fair-haired Norse chieftains. In secluded valleys they lay by the side of the blue fjord, lonely and solitary as the ruins of Gerasa, and as myste- rious in their downfall. Still there were the interests of the Bergen mer- chants to be remembered, and the colony to be cared ^66 HEROES OF THE ICE-BOUND NORTH for. During all the fifteen years of his labours for the Eskimos of Greenland, Mr. Egede had continu- ously the oversight of the home trade and responsi- bility for its success. Yet not otherwise could he have opened up Greenland to Christian missions, and who shall say that the wise administration Denmark gave her distant colony and the care with which she ex- cluded those evils in other lands the worst enemy of the missionary were not in large measure due to the noble foundation laid by the missionary-trader from Vaagen ? It was July when the little company of forty souls first set foot on Greenland soil. Summer in these northern regions lasts for only a few weeks. Frozen ground until June, and perhaps snow flurries in August, with snow for the winter by September or October, — these are the conditions of a Greenland year. In the long midsummer days fog and mist often hide the cheering brightness of the sun, fol- lowed at night-time by the chill from the great inland ice and floating icebergs and icefields. With the com- ing of winter the cold became intense. From the dis- tant cliffs came the sound of rocks riven by the cold. The hoarfrost penetrated the fire-warmed shelters. Over the sea hovered the frost-smoke, which, forced to land, was transformed into a multitude of tiny ice flakes. At other times the dry snow-dust, caught up by the winds and driven onward with icy force, pre- vented any one from venturing out of doors. Nor were the Eskimos willing to trade much with them, preferring to save the surplus of their stores for the Dutch vessels which they had learned to expect in the spring. By the winter's end provisions were failing, and even the good missionary half inclined to a return in the Dutch trading-ships. But for brave Mrs. Egede THE EGEDES IN GREENLAND 267 the settlement would have ceased long before the June days brought supplies from Bergen. It was no easy task to win the confidence of the native Greenlanders, and even when the suspicions of the people were laid, they were still well content with their condition and seemingly incapable of understand- ing the spiritual message which Pastor Egede brought them. To add to other difficulties, he must grapple with a language totally unlike any European speech. The children could be induced to study only by the promise of a fishhook for each letter learned, and even then they soon wearied and complained of restraint. With the older natives, also, material good alone seemed of weight. If Mr. Egede told them of mira- cles, they were unable to understand the great miracle that God works in the soul of man, and looked to the great Angekok (Magician) only for healing for their sick and success in seal-hunting. One cannot help surmising that much of the failure to reach the hearts of the Eskimos lay in the theology of Pastor Egede's day, which certainly did not fit the labourer to tell the story of God's love simply and effectively as to little children. Educationally and otherwise, Mr. Egede stood at the portals of our modern age, while the fact that he came to trade with the Eskimos acted as a hindrance to a perfect faith in the disinterestedness of his purpose. As we have said, the existence of the mission de- pended upon the prosperity of the colony commercially, and more than once, when all seemed going well, a poor year's trade brought anxiety to the missionaries, making it necessary for them to give more and more time to business transactions with the natives. Fi- nally, at the accession of Christian the Sixth, in 1731, 268 HEROES OF THE ICE-BOUND NORTH the colony was ordered home, permission being given to the Egedes to remain alone if they wished. For a time it was indeed dark for our missionaries, but, ships failing for the transfer of the entire colony, be- fore the end of the year some help was sent those who remained, and a year later came the joyful news that the colony was to be continued. Had Mr. Egede been a less conservative and con- scientious man, the report of the mission would prob- ably have been of greater weight at court. For many of the Greenlanders gave assent at last to his teachings and desired baptism. A Xavier or a Dutch clergyman would soon have recorded large numbers of Christians in Greenland. But, because the Danish labourer dis- covered no fruits of their faith in the life, he refused to perform the sacred rite, nor thought himself far wrong when later he learned that these same appar- ently devout Greenlanders among their own people made mock of his preaching and praying. His long- ing was to educate and train the children, but here also he was hindered by the roving habits of the Eskimos. In the midst of all these labours. Pastor Egede counted himself rich in the love and untiring support and sympathy of a noble wife. When, in the settle- ment's early days, despair seized the colonists, and even their leader was ready to return to Norway, Mrs. Egede resolutely refused to pack the household effects, counselling patience and prophesying the speedy com- ing of the supply ships. Only to her was it due that the company did not leave Greenland on the Dutch ships at the close of that first winter. With true tact she won the hearts of the Eskimos, and never did mis- sionary's wife give herself with more self-denying THE EGEDES IN GREENLAND 269 love to the sick and needy, and none ever displayed a more true and high Christian courage. Without Ger- trude Egede the Danish mission in Greenland would have been an impossibility. Hardly were the missionaries freed from the anxiety caused by the attitude of King Christian toward the continuance of the colony, when a pestilence broke out at Godhaab, carrying away two or three thousand of the native Greenlanders. The home of the missiona- ries was given over to the sick and dying. Without fear they moved among the natives in their villages, and won their love, if not their interest in higher things. Although they could do little to stay the rav- ages of the dread disease, they had at last opportunity for proving that they were among the Greenlanders for no other purpose than to do them good. One man voiced this conviction when he said, " You have done for us what our own people would not do." For a year the pestilence continued, and when it was at last over, the country around the trading-post and for miles southward and northward, was almost de- populated. Many voices were now calling Mr. Egede back to Europe. Broken health prevented him from making long missionary tours. In this remote country he could not provide suitably for the education of his children. More than all, he felt that the colony could now be safely left in the care of his son and the other missionaries, and that his personal plea at Copenhagen would mean more for the future of the mission than a prolongation of his services in Greenland. Early in 1735 h^ wrote for and obtained an honourable dis- charge, and for Mrs. Egede there was a brief promise of a return to home and friends. But, though forti- 270 HEROES OF THE ICE-BOUND NORTH tude and Christian faith will carry the soul far, the body at last gives way before too great a strain. When the pestilence was only a year away, Mrs. Egede succumbed to the long burden of anxiety and privation. Her watch-care for others could not prevent the com- ing of that messenger none may ever refuse, and, on the twenty-first of December, 1735, the brave wife and mother entered into rest. For such heroism is the world infinitely richer and nobler. Worn by his long struggle for Greenland, and sor- rowing for the companion of all his labours and anxieties, Mr. Egede himself fell ill, and, in the August following his wife's passing, sailed for Copenhagen. A pathetic picture, that last service at Godhaab, when the man who for thirteen years had faced all difficulties to carry the gospel to this bleak northland, and fifteen years longer had laboured faithfully, but without seeming success, for the conversion of its inhabitants, committed to his successors the task of Christianizing Greenland. He chose as the text of his farewell ser- mon words from the forty-ninth chapter of Isaiah, *' I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in vain; yet surely my judg- ment is with the Lord, and my work with my God." And his judgment has been with God, and with the years He has revealed the grandeur of seeming defeat. For now we know that " not failure but low aim is crime." Nor were Hans Egede's strivings fruitless. Through them Greenland was once more discovered to the world, and a way opened for Danish and Moravian missionaries to conquests which he had seen only afar off, while in high purpose and loyal devotion to a great cause Mr. Egede gave to Christian missions an example of splendid worth. " Estimated on the scale THE EGEDES IN GREENLAND 271 of motives and qualities, this apostle was a hero and his mission a triumph." With the body of his beloved wife, and with the children to whom she had given herself with so much devotion, Mr, Egede arrived in Denmark on the twenty- fourth of September, 1736. The next year the King appointed him superintendent of the work in Greenland and directed him to found a training-school for the mission. He lived twenty-two years longer, preparing an exhaustive work on the natural history of Greenland, which is still regarded as a classic, and giving himself to the forwarding of the Danish mission and settlements. The end came on the fifth of November, 1758, at the home of his daughter, on the island of Falster. The labourer had gone, but the work lived on. Mr. Egede's oldest son, Paul, had aided his father from the first, and, after study in Denmark, re- turned to Greenland, to remain many years as mis- sionary and director. In later life he continued his work for the men of the North as professor of theology in the mission training-school at Copenhagen and as Bishop of Greenland. He prepared a grammar of the Greenland tongue, a translation of a large part of the Bible, and of numerous prayers and liturgies, as well as of " The Imitation of Christ," devoting himself unwearyingly to the welfare of the Greenland mission until his death in 1789. VII THE PILGRIMS' WATCH Moravian Missions "Jesus, still lead on, Till our rest be won ; And although the way be cheerless, We will follow, calm and fearless : Guide us by thy hand To our Fatherland." — Count von Zinzendorf, JUST outside the quiet little town of Herrnhut, Saxony, beneath the shadow of protecting trees, stands a simple monument with these words: " On this year was felled the first tree for the settle- ment of Herrnhut, June 17, 1722. * Yea, the sparrow hath found a house and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God.' " To this uncultivated, wooded, and marshy bit of land — a part of the Berthelsdorf estate of Count Zinzendorf — Christian David led the first band of Moravian refu- gees, sixteen years after the departure of the Danish missionaries for India. In the months following, others of the Hidden Seed, emboldened by the flight of their friends, succeeded in escaping from Catholic oppression and before many years the tangled morass was cleared and the wilderness transformed into the fruitful field. 273 MORAVIAN MISSIONS 273 Ten years later this little church had become a for- eign missionary organization. The story runs as fol- lows. In 1730 Count Zinzendorf was summoned to Copenhagen to attend the coronation festivities of Christian the Sixth, and at some time during his stay in the busy port, discovered men from the North whom Pastor Egede had baptized and a Christian negro from the West Indies named Anthony. Not long after- ward Anthony sought leave of absence from his mas- ter, and journeyed to Herrnhut, where, with all the eloquence of his race, he poured out to the Brethren the story of negro suffering and longing in these dis- tant islands, and of his own sister at work under the burning sky of the tropics and waiting for messengers of the Good News of which she as yet knew so little. The plea was not made in vain. Leonhard Dober and David Nitschmann ^ offered themselves for service on St. Thomas and, after some deliberation, were accepted by the Brethren. • But the home church was not yet able to undertake the support of labourers in the foreign field, and these men were of humble origin, artisans, without property, so that when they had travelled all the long six hun- dred miles to Copenhagen they found themselves with- out money for their passage to the West Indies, and objects of ridicule to the practical Danes. Happily, God has always loved the dreamer and ordained that by his visions the world's life should be enlarged. So was it with these Herrnhut brethren. When endur- ance was well-nigh gone, the court chaplain and mem- bers of the royal household interested themselves in the missionaries and sent them, rejoicing, on their way to the New World. ^ Nitschmann was to return, after a little, to the home church. 274 THE PILGRIMS' WATCH On the little island of St. Thomas, containing hardly more than twenty square miles, it was easy to find Anthony's sister. A quotation from her brother's let- ter served as a text for the first sermon preached in the West Indies by Moravian labourers. With the slaves closing in about them, and with the longing eyes of the bondwoman fixed upon them, these white men from beyond seas read and explained words so dear to every longing heart in all the centuries, " And this is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Like the earlier missionaries, these men laboured with their hands for their support. Dober had been a potter in the homeland, but, because the soil did not yield material for his work, he was now forced to seek other employment. Both these men had said that they would willingly themselves become slaves, if by so doing they could better reach the bondservants of the fields. And the unfeigned love of the labourers won the hearts of these down-trodden folk. Never before had they realized that the blessings of love here and a heaven beyond were for the dusky slave as well as for the white master. Under the kindly ministrations of the Moravians, the negroes came to hate sin and long for better living. So the work went on for many months, until the time came for Nitschmann's return to Germany. On sailing, he left to his fellow-labourer a small sum which he had been able to save from his earnings as carpenter, and with this money and the pittance he could gain as watchman on the plantations, Dober laboured on yet many months.^ When he was recalled ' He had given up a position as tutor in the Governor's family because it hindered his work with the slaves. MORAVIAN MISSIONS 275 to Germany to become the General Elder of the home church, others came out to continue the work so splen- didly begun. The story of these Moravian labourers on St, Thomas and on St. Croix and on other of the West Indian Islands is a record of hardship and persecution, of simple devotion and grand heroism. At one time the missionaries v^ere imprisoned by hostile planters, and only released by the timely arrival of Count Zin- zendorf, who was throughout life zealous in promoting the growing missionary activities of his church. The plantation owners complained that the negroes were be- coming better Christians than they were themselves. Hurricanes swept over the island. Drought parched the land. On St. Croix the poison rising from the dank masses of tropic growth carried away nine of the Brethren in the same number of months. Before the mission was firmly established, fifty men and women had given their lives for the negro. " The West In- dies," says Mr. Thompson,^ " form a series of Mo- ravian cemeteries. The Brethren knew their liabili- ties; they met them calmly, and with quiet assurance fell asleep in Jesus. Other churches have since sent Christian labourers to the same fields; but the Mo- ravians were the first, by their toil and by their graves, to take possession of these islands for ' Him who shall have dominion from sea to sea.' " Love at last conquered. To win their dark-faced hearers these men were willing to endure all suffering, and, in both these islands and on Jamaica, at last reaped an abundant harvest. Weary with toil in the fields, and bent with age, men and women would walk from ten to fifteen or twenty miles to hear the gospel * " Moravian Missions," A. C. Thompson. 276 THE PILGRIMS' WATCH preached. Even the planter was forced to acknowl- edge that his Christian negroes were of greater money value in the market than the other slaves. As early as 1580, Surinam was visited by European ships. In the next century settlements were made around the harbours of the coast by adventurous Neth- erlanders and, from that time to the present, trade has flowed back and forth between the South Ameri- can colony and the home country. With a climate ex- ceedingly trying to Europeans ; with native Indians of a low order of intelligence and almost without moral sense, bound by revolting superstitions and fetichism, revengeful and with the coming of the white man the slaves of strong drink; with a widespread system of African slavery; with the wilder parts of the country given over to the Bush negroes, fugitive slaves from the plantations ; with unfamiliar languages to conquer and distrust of trader and planter to overcome, the pioneer Moravian missionaries, Dahne and Giittner, sailed for Surinam in 1735, three years after the plant- ing of the first West Indian mission. Pilgerhut, " Pilgrim's Watch," on the Wironje, in British Guiana, was established in 1738, and from that time lights were set in the darkness. Still many of these stations, planted at an immense cost of suffering and life, had to be abandoned through persecution or pes- tilence, but not before large numbers of these degraded Indians, more especially of the Arawaks, had received the gospel with gladness. In Surinam the missiona- ries laboured with success among the Bush negroes, but because of the climate and of the hostility of some of the negroes, the mission was at length abandoned, and there are now almost no traces of the earlier Chris- tianity. MORAVIAN MISSIONS 277 While Herrnhut and her daughter churches were sending out labourers to the islands of the tropics and the low, forest-covered shores of Guiana, the new lands of the north, destined in later years to become the home of many United Brethren congregations, were not forgotten by the Moravians. In the story of these missions there are two outstanding names — Christian Henry Rauch and David Zeisberger. The first of these men came to New York in 1740 to labour among the Indians, whose condition, moral and spir- itual, had aroused the pity of Bishop Spangenburg. With the message of a Saviour's love and power, Rauch went to the Indian village of Shekomeko, in what is now Dutchess County, and, before two years were gone, had transformed that drunken community into a God-fearing village with a church of thirty-one members. But the traders saw the hope of their gains vanishing, and raised an outcry against Rauch and his fellow-labourers on the ground that they were " un- privileged teachers." The converts were removed to Pennsylvania, where, near Bethlehem, they founded the village of Gnadenhiitten, Tents of Grace, the first of a series of Christian Indian settlements. David Zeisberger was born in 1721, in a village of Moravia, escaping with his parents to Saxony when still a small lad. Later he was with the Moravians in Georgia, and helped in the building of Bethlehem. It was here that he decided to give himself to the Indian. Thereafter his life was devoted unwearyingly to Christianizing and civilizing the dusky dwellers of the forest. In the misunderstandings and persecutions which the two wars of the eighteenth century brought to his converts, Zeisberger was their constant friend and counsellor, besides acting in the capacity of me- 278 THE PILGRIMS' WATCH diator between the Indian tribes and the colonists, and in the Revolution turning the tide of war in western Pennsylvania. At Goschen, in the Tusca- rawas Valley, on the seventeenth of November, 1808, the faithful labourer entered into rest, after having given himself for nearly seventy years to " his brown brethren " of the forest, as he fondly called his Indian converts. The record of Dr. Van der Kemp's heroic labours in South Africa and the romantic experiences of Rob- ert and Mary Moffat among the Bushmen are familiar enough reading. But how many know the story of the first Protestant missionary who went out to the Dark Continent, fifty-one years before the arrival of the learned physician, and gathered out of the darkness a Christian church which, but for the opposition of supposedly Christian people, would have opened a broad avenue for the entrance of the gospel among the Hottentots of South Africa. The life of George Schmidt is worth knowing. His preparation for the mission field was gained within the gloomy walls of a Bohemian prison, where the chains wore heavily upon him for six long years. Safe at last in Herrnhut, he heard the pleading voice of the far-away African in a letter of appeal received by the Brethren from Eng- land. Perhaps his own years of suffering had soft- ened his heart for all in distress, and the long days in prison had surely made the presence of the Christ real to him. His decision was soon made, but before he reached the Cape his faith was tried to the utmost. The clergymen at Amsterdam who examined him en- deavoured by every means to dissuade him from his purpose, and for a weary twelvemonth he was made to wait in their city, labouring meanwhile for his daily MORAVIAN MISSIONS 279 bread. Nor was it much better when he reached Cape Town. There is nothing harder to bear than ridicule, even when one knows one is in the right. The Dutch of South Africa were little enough in sympathy with any plan to aid the Hottentots, whom they despised, and whose possessions they coveted. Yet these na- tives had trusted them freely, and would have entered into friendly relations of trade with them. " The Hot- tentots came, with thousands of cattle and sheep, close to our fort," wrote a governor of the Dutch colony. " If we had been allowed, we had opportunity enough to deprive them to-day of ten thousand head; which, however, if we obtain orders to that effect, we can do at any time." In the end they took their land from this helpless folk, and slew and enslaved whom they could. Alone the dauntless Schmidt went forth to the de- spised kraals and, little by little, won the friendship and the trust of his black hearers. Before three years had passed, we see him baptizing his first convert. Others were added in increasing numbers. Even some of the Dutch neighbours were stirred by his preaching. Yet the hostility of those to whom his life was a re- buke was closely following him and would soon mean the close of his mission. Longing, not discourage- ment, was often upon him. To the Brethren he wrote, " I stand here alone." Persecution increasing, he was at last forced out of the colony never to return. Forty-two years later he was found upon his knees in his cottage at Niesky, whence, praying after his custom for his beloved Afri- cans, he had passed into the presence of his Lord. Only a little time after his death, by the fallen walls of his humble home in Bavian's Kloof was established the second Moravian mission in South Africa, and 280 THE PILGRIMS' WATCH that a permanent one. Today this scene of unfinished labour and fulfilled prayer is known from its marvel- lous transformation as the Vale of Grace/ and who shall say that the pleadings of that exiled missionary did not mean more for the Dark Continent than even his continued labours there? For of such prayers is builded the Kingdom of God. We have seen that when, in the year 1731, the fate of the Greenland mission hung in the balance, Count Zinzendorf came into touch at Copenhagen with bap- tized Eskimos from Godhaab. About the same time Christian David discovered in the library of a clergy- man, whom he was visiting, a relation of the Danish mission in the North, extracts from which he sent to the Brethren at Herrnhut. Meanwhile, the first Mo- ravian missionaries went out to the West Indies, and the needs of distant races stirred the hearts of many of these humble villagers. The result of it all was a memorable decision scene, not unlike the famous Hay- stack prayer-meeting. We will give the story in the words of one of the missionaries.^ " I was at work with Frederic Bonisch on the new burying-ground, called the Hutberg. He was the first person I acquainted with what passed in my mind,^ and I found that he had been actuated on the same occasion with the same desire to promote the salvation of the heathen. We conversed with simplicity about it, and perceived we had the greatest inclination to go to Greenland, but we knew not whether we ought to look upon the propension that had taken place in us as ^ Genadendal (Gnadenthal), the seat of a Moravian theological seminary. 2 Matthew Stach. 3 Desire to carry the gospel to lands still heathen. MORAVIAN MISSIONS 281 an impulse wrought by God, which we should give no- tice of to the congregation, or whether we should wait till a call was given us. But, as we were both of one mind, and confidently believed that our Saviour's promise would be verified to us: If two of you shall agree on earth, etc., therefore we retired to the wood just at hand, kneeling down before Him, and begged Him to clear up our minds in this important affair, and lead us in the right way. Upon this our hearts were filled with uncommon joy, and we omitted no longer to lay our mind before the congregation in writing." The consent of Count Zinzendorf gained, Matthew and Christian Stach, accompanied by Christian David, who went to see the mission established, set out for Copenhagen and Greenland. A little more than a year later the missionaries were joined by John Beck and Frederic Bonisch, the latter at the time of the departure of the Stachs absent from Herrnhut on a commission from the Church. Let us remember that these men were humble labourers, unaccustomed to se- rious study. Yet in those first years they learned enough Danish to study Eskimo with the Egedes, with whose help and the aid of the natives they became suf- ficiently proficient in the Greenland tongue to translate Scripture and hymns even more idiomatically than Mr. Egede. When discouragement followed discouragement, the Brethren refused to think of return. " By God's grace," they wrote, " we will not despond, but keep the Lord's watch." Six years passed and still they had made no impression upon the Eskimos, Other times, however, were about to dawn. With the coming of the June days a company of 282 THE PILGRIMS' WATCH Eskimos wandering along the coast from the south presented themselves at the mission house, where John Beck was writing out a translation from the gospels. When he had told them the oft-repeated story of the coming of the Christ to earth for their sakes — a story which had so often fallen on heedless ears in those long six years — one of the Southlanders came up to the table where the missionary was sitting, and in a voice in which there was at last genuine emotion, cried out, "How was that? Tell me that again." With tears of thankfulness, the patient labourer told once more all that wonderful story of the Master's life and of the Good News of God's love that he had declared. The Eskimos went away at last, but a little more than a week later Kajarnak was back again, listening even more earnestly than before. Very simply did he ac- cept the love so freely offered and, in the midst of sore temptations and many dangers, remained true to his Christ and brought his family and friends into his own great joy. A little longer and Kajarnak was called to his heavenly home. His going, trustful as that of a little child, made a deep impression upon the hitherto indif- ferent Greenlanders. The missionaries gave him a Christian burial. " At the grave one of the Danish missionaries spoke from the words, ' I am the Resur- rection and the Life,' and told them that a be- liever does not die, but at his departure begins truly to live, and lives forevermore. Then we kneeled down upon the snow under the canopy of the firma- ment, and gave back to our Saviour this our firstling." ^ Steadily, but surely, the way broadened and light- ened. One and another heard the words of life and * David Cranz, " History of Greenland." MORAVIAN MISSIONS 283 became teachable and gentle. From their summer wanderings they came back still true to their faith and ready to win others. A little school was opened, and the children were at last willing to be taught, while among the older converts there was developed a new spirit of unity by the bond of a common interest in life's deeper meanings. Constant supervision and un- limited patience would be necessary yet many years, for the Eskimos had everything to learn and would be led into vagaries by their very childishness, but the great love of the Brethren was at last winning its reward. It remains to tell of the founding of Lichtenfels. The new settlement was made on an island off Fisher's Inlet, a little more than a hundred miles south of New Herrnhut. The Danes had established a trading-post on the mainland opposite, and many Southlanders were attracted thither. It was for this folk that the second mission was founded. Matthew Stach was given direction of the mission. Three years later, the work prospering abundantly, a church was built and by 1762 there was a congregation of one hundred and seventy Greenlanders. Some of the sweetest hymns used in our church serv- ices are of Moravian origin. Count Zinzendorf him- self leading the way in this form of praise, and the children and older converts at Lichtenfels never tired of the singing hour. Often, too, one might have heard the soft voices of the women and the clear, ringing voices of the children singing about their home tasks the hymns they had learned of the Brethren, while the men launched their kayaks to the melody of Chris- tian song. The first of the missionaries to go home was Fred- 28* ' THE PILGRIMS' WATCH eric Bonisch. Spending his last hours " in still con- versations with his Lord," this faithful labourer passed quietly and joyfully to receive his Master's " Well done " after twenty-nine years of service for the men of the North. The work that he and his comrades instituted has been brought to a successful issue, and to-day Greenland is Christianized. Only a few hun- dred Eskimos on the east coast, moving down from the north, are still pagan, and to these the Danish Church is ministering. In 1900 the Moravians, feel- ing that their work in Greenland was over, and desir- ing to transfer their labourers to more needy fields, gave over their missions to the Danes. But the rec- ord of their labours remains to stimulate the Christian Church, whatever its form of faith, by the conquests which a few humble men with hearts aglow with love for the Christ were able to win at a time when Chris- tian missions were almost unknown in the Protestant world. VIII HERALDS OF A NEW DAY IN INDIA ZlEGENBALG, PlUTSCHAU, ScHULTZE, ScHWARTZ " None but Christ ; none but Christ ; none but Christ hath de- served this bright, this precious diadem, India, and Jesus shall have it." — Keshab Chandra Sen. " Ye Christian heralds ! go, proclaim Salvation through Immanuel's name ; To distant climes the tidings bear, And plant the rose of Sharon there." NOT SO long ago the painter of the Renaissance period was worshipped at the expense of the Primitive, miracle play and morality were for- gotten in the perfection of the Elizabethan drama, and Luther and Calvin overshadowed the valiant forerun- ners of the Reformation. With widening horizons of thought there has come a new interest in art and his- tory's springtime, and now we delight hardly less in drawing from the oblivion of years the great souls who in the hour before the dawn mounted the untrav- elled hill-slope and beheld afar off the first glimmerings of light. In the annals of Protestant missions in Asia we find such men as these in Ziegenbalg and Pliitschau and Griindler and Schwartz. Through the efforts of these pioneers, more than eighty years be- fore William Carey began his great campaign for Indian missions, there was erected in Tranquebar the 285 286 HERALDS OF A NEW DAY IN INDIA first Protestant mission chapel to be dedicated in that great Eastern land. Its successor, built a few years later, still stands, a monument of those brave begin- nings. And so we are the richer for this chapter of heroic endeavour, for, although no one denies to Carey the honour of ushering in the splendour of the day, we must also give recognition to the forerunners of a new era in Indian missions, the German labourers of the eighteenth century. Ruskin has somewhere suggested that " we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world's surface which a bird sees in its migra- tion, that difference between the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow see afar off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind." And then with inimitable power he conducts his readers from the Mediterranean, " with all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun," northward over " the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians," over " mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor " and the broken islands of northern seas to the regions of " polar twilight." It is suggestive of broad horizons, this half-imagi- nary journey upon which Ruskin has taken us, suggest- ive of the manner in which history is to be studied and life judged; there must be for us no limitations of local barrier. Let us suppose ourselves, then, in the years before the Christian era, looking down from the overspreading heavens upon the three continents of the eastern hemisphere. In the vast reaches of Eu- rope and Asia obscure movements of restless hordes forcing their way slowly through mountain defiles and along river valleys westward and southward into the < D O! u D U < ZIEGENBALG, PLUTSCHAU, SCHULTZE 287 peninsulas and islands of Europe and over the passes of the snow-crowned Himalayas into sun-loved India; by the inundated Nile magnificent buildings rising to the sound of the slave-driver's lash; on other river plains to the eastward, the gardens of mighty Babylon with the great tower-temple of Bel dominating the city on the northeast; northward again, Nineveh with its libraries ; between these cities and Egypt, Palestine, the battleground of antiquity; all of these in turn to feel the new vigour of life and thought coming to its own where the galleys of the Phoenicians have planted the seeds of earlier civilizations in the quick soil of Greece and Italy. There are no barriers staying the march of these armies or forbidding the mingling of these civilizations through trader and traveller. Each is within the vision of all contemporaries. Their world is the world about the Mediterranean. Only dimly do they know the land of spices and perfumes and costly fabrics beyond the desert and the moun- tains. With our gift of omni-vision we are permitted a wider view. See, beneath us stretch the lofty masses of the Himalayas, from their southern base extending broad river plains, drained by the five great rivers of the Panjab and their myriad tributaries; and farther southward still the triangular plateau of the Deccan, bounded east and west by the Ghats. Here, too, is strife, the conflict of long-time owner and incoming Aryan. For centuries the struggle continues, while steadily the white race wins its way southward and forces the older peoples into the hills, where their descendants live to this day. While Babylon and Nineveh and Susa are yet filled with teeming thou- sands, these Aryan folk are composing Vedic hymns, destined for more than thirty centuries to be revered g88 HERALDS OF A NEW DAY IN INDIA as the sacred books of Brahmin India. Now and again the tramp of armies from the west disturbs this orient land. Alexander the Great traverses the Pan- jab, opening a broader way for commercial inter- course with Western nations. The greatness of Rome is known afar off. By repeated invasions the builders of mosque and minaret gain here a foothold, which they still retain. The one impression our vision leaves with us? India is a land of ancient civilization, a non-Christian, not a heathen country. In a previous chapter we have followed the Portu- guese to India and watched the Spanish Jesuit Xavier at his labours in Goa and on the Pearl Coast. In 1616 the first Danish ships reached Tranquebar, which five years later they purchased of the Rajah of Tanjore, erecting a strong fort on land overlooking the harbour. For a time the undertaking prospered and Danish merchants sent home rich cargoes. As the century waned, however, the Dutch were more and more con- trolling the commerce of southern India, the English were strengthening themselves in the north, and the Danes entered upon a struggle for the maintenance of the foothold they had gained. In the last year of the century, Frederick the Fourth succeeded Christian the Fourth as king of Denmark, inheriting the long struggle with Sweden. Neverthe- less, the Danish sovereign found time to heed com- plaints of injustice from his Indian possessions, and, understanding the low ebb of morals in Tranquebar, sought from his chaplain. Dr. Liitkens, a plan for bet- tering conditions in the Danish port and province. Dr. Liitkens, recently come from Germany, counted among his acquaintances men of the Francke type, and was ready, therefore, with suggestions for a be- ZIEGENBALG, PLUTSCHAU 289 ginning of Christian missions in Danish India. At the king's command, he set about discovering men equal to the task, and, finding none of suitable training and consecration in Denmark, chose two Germans, Bar- tholomew Ziegenbalg and Henry Pliitschau, both of whom had studied at Halle under Dr. Francke. Ziegenbalg was born in a little town ^ near Dresden, June 4, 1683. Like so many men of consecration, he had a noble mother, who on her deathbed bequeathed her children her greatest treasure, a love for the Bible as one of the first sources of inspiration for high liv- ing. During a few months spent at Halle, the young Ziegenbalg won the friendship of Professor Francke. Thoughtful by nature and fond of music and revery, he was withal practical and resourceful. One hardly needs more facts than these to explain his later suc- cessful leadership in India's first Protestant mission. Of Pliitschau less is known, and largely on account of ill health he returned to Europe at the end of the first five years' service. The two men sailed from Copenhagen in November, 1705, arriving at Tranquebar the following July. Here they were met with indifference and even perse- cution. They had indeed been treated as fanatics from the first, and, although brought to Denmark by royal command and proceeding upon their mission under court patronage, were still treated contemptu- ously by the practical Danes, who regarded their hopes as chimeras impossible of realization. " If God will be pleased to grant us the conversion of but one soul among the heathen," they said, " we $hall think our voyage sufficiently rewarded." Immediately on reaching Tranquebar, the missiona- J Pulsnitz. 290 HERALDS OF A NEW DAY IN INDIA ries set themselves to the mastery of Tamil, one of the principal Dravidian languages of southern India. But the way was full of difficulties, for the people feared that the secrets of their faith might be revealed if they taught these strangers the Tamil language, and the Danish merchants and officials were pursuing the missionaries daily with petty persecutions. We see these undaunted labourers seated on the earth floor, patiently tracing Tamil words in the sand with the children of a small native school. To obtain a key to the vocabulary which they were gaining in the In- dian school, they persuaded a young man of the Mala- bar coast to live with them. But the delicacy of their situation becomes apparent when we read that at the end of two years their guest was made prisoner by the native prince and when released forced to remain in exile. Despite hindrances, however, they became proficient in the Tamil language and Ziegenbalg ac- quainted himself with the rich Tamil literature. Among his first labours was the preparation of a dic- tionary and a grammar, the latter written in Latin and printed at Halle. Ziegenbalg and Plutschau had not been long in India when they opened a school for poor children — Tamils and Portuguese, whom they supported and educated at the expense of the mission. Meanwhile Ziegenbalg preached in both languages and, in 1707, ten years after landing, baptized five slaves, their first converts. Three months later, they dedicated a small chapel, the precursor of the beautiful Jerusalem Church, still used as the mission church of Tranquebar. The expenses of the mission were now greatly en- larged, and help from home was slow in coming, while a sum of gold pieces sent from the Danish gov- ZIEGENBALG, PLUTSCHAU 291 ernment was lost in the harbour of Tranquebar through the carelessness of sailors. During those years of persecution Pliitschau suffered arrest and Ziegenbalg imprisonment on the charge of stirring up the people to rebellion/ Success and discouragement struggled together for the mastery. At last, in 1709, when the resources of the mission had reached their lowest ebb, a ship arrived from Denmark with funds and a re-enforcement of labourers, among whom was John Ernst Griindler. About this time, also, the English Society for promoting Christian Knowledge sent an offering of money and the gift of a printing- press, a font of Roman and Italic letters, and a number of copies of the New Testament. From Halle they received a font of Tamil characters. In 1714 Ziegenbalg visited Europe. Pliitschau had already returned home, where, in a parish of Germany, he remained a beloved pastor for thirty years, all the while working and praying for the success of the mis- sion in far-away Tranquebar. During the months of his furlough Ziegenbalg told the thrilling story of his labours at the court of Denmark and to large congre- gations in Denmark and Germany and England. While in Europe he was united in marriage with Dorothea Salzmann, a woman every way fitted for life on the mission field. On his return to India Ziegenbalg found his transla- tion of the New Testament into Tamil just come from the press. With true German thoroughness, he had delayed beginning the translation until he understood the language in its finer shades of meaning. Other difficulties had arisen, also, so that the book was not published until he had been nine years in India. The ^The charge was of course unfounded. 292 HERALDS OF A NEW DAY IN INDIA- remaining years of his life were spent in preparing a translation of the Old Testament, which he carried so far as Ruth, in work on a grammar of the Tamil tongue, and in translation of hymns for the church services. But the end was near. Failing health had forced him to leave Halle in his student days, and the climate of India and his unceasing labours had done the rest. On the twenty-third of February, 17 19, India's first Protestant missionary went home to his reward, having opened the way for conquests whose end we see not even now. Bartholomew Ziegenbalg possessed many of the qualities essential to success on the mission field, — steadfastness of purpose, zeal, initiative, acumen, fear- lessness, mental quickness, and consecration. To a large extent he employed methods still in use, many of which are, after all, only modified forms of the methods of the earlier mediaeval missionary labourers, but to-day enriched by the marvellous discoveries of a new era of thought and of scientific research, A little more than a year after Ziegenbalg's death, Griindler also was taken from the mission. In the few years which he had spent in India, he had proved a tower of strength, and until the coming of Schwartz his place was not adequately filled. Meanwhile, in 1719, Benjamin Schultze arrived from Denmark with two companions, and soon increased the number of schools to twenty-five, many of these offering educa- tion to Mohammedan children. He completed the translation of the Old Testament begun by Ziegenbalg. From Tranquebar he carried the gospel into English territory, founding a mission at Madras. Under his direction evangelistic work was also carried on in the province of Tanjore by native catechists, who came "^^nu/Kf' ^ ^y2..^_^ SCHULTZE, SCHWARTZ 293 into conflict with Roman Catholic missionaries. At the end of twenty-four years filled with energetic la- bours, Schultze returned to Europe in 1743. Ac- cording to the statistics of 1747 there had been bap- tized (including infants) eight thousand and fifty-six persons, over five thousand of whom were still living. Although the missionaries made the mistake of giving pecuniary aid to some of the catechumens, especially those from outside the city, still, on the whole, the missionaries were careful not to receive into the Church those who " were defective in knowledge of the gospel, or whose life did not correspond with their profes- sion. The latter half of the eighteenth century in India was brightened by the presence of one of the most devoted missionaries of all time. For many years the memory of kindly " Father Schwartz " rested like a benediction upon all that southern country. A man of sterling character, a lover of all men, and especially of the little children, he laboured in Tranquebar and Trichinopoli and Tan j ore for nearly fifty years, and, dying, bequeathed his savings to the mission. Christian Friedrich Schwartz was born in 1726 in the ancient town of Sonnenburg, Prussia, where of old the Knights of St. John held high festival, and where Benjamin Schultze had grown to manhood. A pic- ture of the good mother, about to cross the bourne of life, consecrating her infant child to missionary serv- ice; a record of the lad's studies at Sonnenburg and Kustrin; a glimpse of Schwartz the youth learning the Tamil language at Halle, that he may assist in the cor- rection of proofs from the Halle press; finally, the father's brave acceptance of his son's plea to be al- lowed service in far-away India — permission granted 294, HERALDS OF A NEW DAY IN INDIA through remembrance of the mother's last wish — then a port of India on a July day of 1750 and a meeting of volunteers, buoyantly hopeful, with veteran labour- ers in a difficult field; after that a period of forty- eight years spent in " doing and pointing to that which is right " with all the earnestness of a thoroughly sin- cere nature, — such is the story of this Pietist mis- sionary. During the first years at Tranquebar, Schwartz strove to make himself master of " the religious views, social conditions, history, habits, and entire circle of the mental associations of the people." He founded schools and directed many catechists, whom he gath- ered each morning for religious instruction and lessons of patience and forbearance. From the inspiration of his noble presence they went forth into the surround- ing country, " trying," he was accustomed to say, " whether they might not be so happy as to bring some of their wandering brethren into the way of truth." In the evening they returned to him with a report of all their labours, and " the day closed as it began, with meditation and prayer." With all his labours in the Danish province of Tranquebar, Schwartz yet found time to travel much in other parts of southern India and in Ceylon. In 1767 he visited Trichinopoli, where he entered the service of the English Society for Promoting Chris- tian Knowledge. His last years were spent in Tan- jore, one of the oldest and richest cities of southern India. To a student like Schwartz, the city must have spoken eloquently of the powerlessness of civilization without Christianity. For centuries Tanjore had been a Hindu capital; it possessed a temple perhaps the finest in India, and built in the century that saw SCHWARTZ 295 the coming of the Normans into England. Here lit- erature and art had flourished, and beautiful and costly- handiwork was produced. Nature had lavished her wealth upon it. Everything was granted but the knowledge that leads to high moral and spiritual ideals, and, because this was lacking, the city of beauty and wealth had become the home of vice and misery and sorrow. His quiet courtesy and tact, his utter trustworthi- ness, and his great heart of compassion made Schwartz a prominent figure in both European and Indian cir- cles. He was called to preach before the rajah of Tanjore, whose friendship he gained and kept. Just before the latter's death, he called Schwartz to him and would have given him the guardianship of his adopted son, Serfoji, a lad of nine years. Schwartz wisely refused the responsibility, but promised to coun- sel and befriend the young prince — a promise nobly kept and nobly rewarded. Among both natives and English, the veteran missionary was known for his strict fidelity and honour. When Hyder Ali was threatening the Carnatic, and the English desired to send an envoy to his camp, Hyder replied, " Send me the Christian. I can trust him." Again, when Tan- jore was threatened by an army in the rear and, the rajah's credit having been destroyed by his dobashes, the inhabitants faced starvation, the Indian ruler sum- moned Schwartz and empowered him to purchase pro- visions from the farmers. With all haste the mis- sionary despatched agents throughout the surrounding country, and shortly grain and cattle were coming into the city in abundance, for if " the missionary is re- sponsible for payment, we shall not be disappointed." Splendid tribute to the character of Schwartz. In the 296 HERALDS OF A NEW DAY IN INDIA light of such qualities we may even forget his great mistake in over-leniency on the caste question. In judging the attitude of the German Pietists toward the caste problem, let us remember, too, that they were trained in Imperial Germany and in the age before the social awakening which followed the French revolu- tion. They could not estimate conditions as would the missionary from democratic twentieth-century Eng- land or America. Integrity, absolute uprightness in word and life, however, has appealed to all peoples in all ages, and he of whom it can be said, as of Schwartz, " if he has given his word, we may rest content," is blessed beyond measure. To his sterling character Schwartz added a sympa- thetic and loving nature. He would preach the love of Christ, it is said, until he wept, and then it was not long before his hearers were converted. When war clouds were hovering over the city, he bought rice, which he later distributed to famine sufferers. In Tranquebar he erected a row of small houses for widows, and in Tanjore his home was given over to orphans, while he contented himself with the plainest lodgings and fare. He served not only the people of India, but the English soldiers of the garrison, and it was through the Governor of the Fort that his chapel at Tanjore was built. Like others before and since, Schwartz was not al- lowed to proceed in his labours unhindered. The Jesuits of the province of Tanjore sought to prejudice the people against his work, telling them half-truths, always a most dangerous weapon. Most disappoint- ing of all, his work was misunderstood in England and misrepresented in the House of Commons, so that he was at the necessity of vindicating and defending 1 M. I i . Mr.vii; ;;;,-;•, C 1 1 U l^TIA.N I'lC i:ni:ii 1 ( sWAirr'/ r..il N AT '-, 'N N r.N HI' !.'<.. OK Nlll M \l; k I \ 11 i K KIM.lHlM or n;i; ■niK _■■' ' OK oc 1(11'- i-:h r jo. A.NP iiirn AT TA.N.ioii i: 'nii'. r oi- kt.im! w \l.^ i"')'., I \ TiiK 7J ^i;\K oi ;ii'- AGi: oi.voiKti ntoM 111^ KAKi.Y .\rA.sn(H>n 'lo ijii ori'iCK ok - '"^. M I^!^IONAK\ IN I'm: KA'^T, "I'HK StM ll.AH ri'"!' OK Ills sKKI ATU)>» Tf) "rUA'r OF Tin: KlKS-r rHKA " The Irish Primitive Church," De Vinnfe, APPENDIX 305 XVI.— And so if I should be deemed worthy, I am ready, willingly and unchangeably for His name's sake to spend my life unto death, if the Lord should thus indulge me. For I am exceedingly a debtor unto God, who has given to me such an amount of grace that so many through my instrumentality have been born again unto God, and already established ; and that also the ministry is everywhere ordained for a people who have so recently come from unbelief, whom the Lord has taken from the ends of the earth, and of whom long ago He promised through the prophet, "To thee the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth and shall say, Thus our fathers procured for them- selves false idols ; and there was no profit in them." (Jer. i6 : 19.) Again, "I have placed thee a hght for the Gentiles that thou mayest be for a salvation to the ends of the earth." (Isa. 49: 6-) And for thee I will wait: for thy promise never fails. So in the Gospel, He has promised : " They shall come from the East and the West, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." (Matt. 8:ii.) And so we believe that believers are about to come from all the world. XXIII.— I wait daily either to be killed, defrauded, or to be driven back again into bondage, or any other occurrence you please. But I fear none of these things, on account of the prom- ise of heaven; because I have thrown myself into the hands of the omnipotent God, who reigns everywhere, who, by the prophet, said, " Cast your thoughts upon God and he himself will nourish you." (Psalm 54:23. Greek translation.) XXV.— I beseech all who believe in God and fear Him, what- ever their rank may be, to examine and regard this writing which Patrick, a sinner and unlearned, has written in Hibernia: and let no one ever say that I, through my ignorance, carried for- ward some little matter ; or whether I have shown, that what has been done, was done according to the pleasure of God. But do you decide, that the gift of God is to be most assuredly credited for what has been done. And this is my Confession before I die. APPENDIX IV PART OF A LETTER SENT BY THE TRANQUEBAR MISSIONARIES TO GEORGE I., KING OF ENGLAND ^ We, the missionaries, on our part, are endeavouring, according to the measure of the grace God Almighty has imparted to us, plentifully to spread abroad the seed of the word of God among the Heathens in their own language, there being no other means for touching the hearts of Heathens, in order to their con- version. We also maintain Indians to assist us as catechists, for which function we first prepare them, by instructing them •From "History of the Propagation of Christianity among the Heathen since the Reformation," William Browa. 306 APPENDIX in the saving faith of Jesus Christ, and then send them to propagate it among the Heathens. To such places, whither the instruction of the gospel by word of mouth cannot reach, we send our printed Malabarian books, which are read in these parts by many of all sorts and degrees. As we are perfectly sensible, that to promote and perpetuate such an undertaking, a solid foundation must be laid, by translating the Holy Scriptures and publishing other instructive books in the language of the country, we did a good while ago finish and publish a translation of the New Testament and are now labouring with great application, in translating the Old Testament into the Malabarian and Portu- guese languages. Besides, we compose every year some books for instructing the Heathens, containing the fundamentals of the Christian religion for better publication of which, the printing- press we have received from our benefactors in England is of great use to us. That our printing-press may always be provided with a sufficient quantity of letters, we enter- tain in the mission persons for cutting moulds and casting letters, as also for binding books, being furnished every year with the necessary tools and materials from England, by the laudable Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. To supply the want of paper, we have been at great expense in erect- ing a paper-mill here. And so under the invocation of the name of God, we plentifully dispense, both by word of mouth and writ- ing, in this Heathen country, the gospel, which makes a happy impression on the minds of many of the inhabitants. Some, in- deed, particularly their Brahmins or priests, gainsay and scoff; others come to a sense of the abominations of idolatry and leave off worshipping their idols ; others are brought to better prin- ciples, and show, in their discourse and writing, that they have got a greater light than their forefathers; others again give full assent to all the truths of Christianity, but, out of worldly considerations, waive baptism and the name of Christians. But some break through all difficulties, and, subduing their reason to the obedience of faith, resolutely profess Christianity: these are for some time instructed by us and our catechists, and after- wards, when they give true signs of repentance and conver- sion, are received into the bosom of the Christian Church by holy baptism. These who are become members of our congre- gation, we are instructing with all diligence, that Jesus Christ may be formed within them. Our private exercises with them are daily catechizings by sending our catechists to their habita- tions, to inquire into their way of life, to examine them upon the catechism, to pray with them, and to make a report to us, the missionaries, of what passes among them. To exercise them in praying, we have set hours thrice a week, in which prayers are read to them in private. We give free occasion to every one of them, to communicate to us their concerns. Our public exercises consist in preaching to them, every Sunday in the morning, a sermon in the Malabarian language, and another in the Portu- guese, and in the afternoon we catechize in both languages, APPENDIX 807 Besides, we preach a sermon in the High Dutch for the Euro- peans; every Wednesday, we catechize at church in Portuguese; and every Friday in Malabarian. As to the children of either sex that belong to our congregation, we instruct them all in our schools in the principles of Christianity, reading, writing, and other useful knowledge ; they are maintained in everything at our charge. We have erected a seminary for such as we design for the service of the gospel, to be furnished thence with proper catechists, preceptors, and clerks. Such boys as want necessary capacity, we put to learn handicrafts. We have also established schools, one in this town, and another in a populous village not far off, where they are instructed by Christian tutors, and have full allowance, except victuals and clothes, which their parents find them. The Lord having so blessed our labours, that the new congregation increases every year, the first church which we built became too narrow, upon which we found it necessary to build one more spacious, and it pleased God to furnish us with means to finish it in two years' time, and we are now constantly preaching in it in three languages. We have likewise, at the desire of the English who live on this coast, erected two schools, one at Fort St. George, and another at Fort St. David. The present governor of Fort St. George is a special friend to the mission, and has lately remitted to it a considerable present. The rest of our friends here have cheerfully supplied our wants this year. The Lord, whose work it is, guide us for the future by his Divine Providence, and stir up in Europe many promoters among persons of all ranks, that, in these last times, the salvation of the Heathens may be sought with earnestness, and their con- version promoted by the whole Christian Church. That our most merciful God may crown your Majesty with all prosperity, is the prayer of your Majesty's, etc., Bartholomew Ziegenbalg. John Ernst Grundler. Tranquebar, November 24th, 1718. APPENDIX V chronology A.D. A.D. 50-53 Paul's European mis- 432 Patricius begins his la- sionary tour. hours in Ireland. 61 Paul sent to Rome a 451 Attila defeated at Chalons, prisoner. 563 Columba goes to lona. 325 Council of Nicsea. 573 Kentigern at Glasgow. 348 Wulfila leads the Gothic 597 Augustine lands at Thanet, Christians into Mcesia. Death of Columba, 381 Death of Wulfila. 610 Columbanus goes to Lake 397 Whithorn founded. Constance. 308 APPENDIX A.D. 615 Death of Columbanus at Bobbio. 617 Battle of the river Idle. Earpwald succeeds Raed- wald. 625 PauHnus sent to Nor- thumbria. 626 Penda becomes king of Mercia. 627 Conversion of Eadvi^ine. 632 Death of Mohammed. 633 Eadwine slain at Heath- field. 634 " Hateful year of Nor- thumbria." 642 Oswald slain at Maser- felth. 643 Martyrdom of Trudpert. 651 Death of Aidan. 655 Oswiu overthrows Penda at Winwaed. 656 Livin martyred in Brabant. 659 Death of Eligius. 664 Synod of Whitby. Death of Cedd. 665 Jaruman in Essex. 669 Ceadda made Bishop of the Mercians. 672 Death of Ceadda. 678 Wilfrid in Frisia. 681 Wilfrid preaches to South Saxons. 685 Cuthbert consecrated Bishop of Lindisfarne. 687 Death of Cuthbert. 690 Martyrdom of the Hew- alds. 692 Willibrord goes to Frisia. 732 Saracens defeated at Poitiers. 739 Death of Willibrord. 755 Martyrdom of Boniface. 814 Louis the Pious suc- ceeds Charlemagne. 825 Baptism of Harald Klag. Ansgar goes to Denmark. 84s Hamburg burned by Danes. Gauzbert driven out of Sweden. A.D. 863 or 4 Cyril and Metho- dius go to Moravia. 865 Death of Ansgar. 869 Death of Cyril. 885 Death of Methodius. 928 Martyrdom of Wences- laus. 992 Conversion of Vladimir. 997 Martyrdom of Adalbert. 1066 Martyrdom of Gott- schalk. 1096-9 First Crusade. 1 168 Last Wendish idol de- stroyed. 1209 Francis of Assisi begins preaching. 1219 Francis visits the Sul- tan. 1226 Death of Francis. 1228-9 Last Crusade. 1235 Inquisition introduced. Birth of Raymund Lull. 1266 Conversion of Raymund Lull. 1275 Ars Majorca completed. 1291-2 Lull visits Tunis. 1303 Franciscans at Pekin. 1307-09 Lull's second visit to Morocco. 1315 Lull stoned at Bugia. 1374 Wyclif becomes vicar of Lutterworth. 1415 John Hus burned at Con- stance. 1492 Moors driven from Gra- nada. America discovered. 1510 Portuguese at Goa. 1514 Las Casas undertakes championship of In- dians of West Indies. 1517 Posting of Wittenberg Theses. 1537 Las Casas sends mis- sionaries into the Land of War. 1542 Xavier arrives at Goa. 1546 Death of Luther. 1549 Xavier to Japan. 1552 Death of Xavier. APPENDIX 309 A.D. A.D. 1560 Knox's Confession of 1740 Faith adopted by Scotch Parliament. 1743 1567 Death of Las Casas. 1600 English East India Com- pany. 1602 Dutch East India Com- 1747 pany. 1646 Eliot begins his mission- ary labours. 1750 Jogues put to death by Indians. 1758 1649 Corporation for the 1767 Propagation of the Gospel in New Eng- 17/0 land. 1778 Brebeuf burned by Iro- quois. 1791 1690 Death of Eliot. 1792 1695 Institute at Halle founded. 1793 1705 Ziegenbalg and Plut- schau sail for India. 1709 Society for Promoting 1795 Christian Knowledge. 1714 Ziegenbalg visits Eu- 1797 rope. 1719 Death of Ziegenbalg. 1721 Egede sails for Green- 1798 land. 1722 Herrnhut built. 1732 First Moravian mis- 1801 sionaries go to West Indies. Christian Henry Rauch at Shekomeko. Schultze returns to Eu- rope. Brainerd begins preach- ing to Indians. Death of Brainerd. George Schmidt in South Africa. Schwartz arrives in India. Death of Egede. Schwartz goes to Trich- inopoli. Death of Whitefield. Schwartz begins mission in Tanjore. Death of John Wesley, The Baptist Missionary Society organized. Carey and his com- panions sail for In- dia. London Missionary So- ciety organized. First missionaries of L.M.S. sent to South Seas. Van der Kemp goes to South Africa. Death of Schwartz. Carey becomes professor in Fort William Col- lege. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CHRISTOLOGY PHILIP VOLLMER, Ph.D., £>. D. The Modern Student's Life of Chri^ i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. , Students, Higher Institutions of Learning, Advanced Bible School Classes, and other organizations will find in thi3 thorough-going volume a text book that combines the results of the very best modern scholarship with a spiritual presenta- tion of the subject that will stir the heart and conscience. Part I. Introduction to the Life of Christ. Part II. The Events of the Life of Christ. _ Part III. General Aspects of the Life of Christ. JOSEPH FORT NEWTON The Eternal Chri^ Studies in the Life of Vision and Service. 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Dr. Hillis* characteristics as a preacher are so well known that it is hardly necessary to point out that this volume of "Sermons for Occasions" is distinguished by originality of thought, felicitous illustrations and distinction of style. Here the reader will find material for each great festival day of the church, and each national holiday, that will give deeper meaning to the "days we celebrate." RUSSELL H. CONWELL, D.D . How to Live the Chri^ Life lamo, cloth, net $1.00. Doctor Conwell is a master of the art of presenting and enforcing truth with dramatic, unusual, gripping narratives. ITiis selection of some of his best sermons well illustrates his genius, These discourses should serve the double purpose of stimulating Christian readers to renewed endeavor to reach a higher level of living and to winning those who have not begun to live the Christ life. W. L. WATKINSON, D.D. Life's Unexpected Issues and Other Papers on Character and Conduct. l2mo, cloth, net $1.00. "A book of seventeen addresses on character and conduct, all of which are fresh and fine in thought, style, and spirit. I'o those who have heard or read after Doctor Watkinson, no word of commendation need be spoken of these splendid papers, the first of which gives title to the volume. The table of contents is most inviting, and each topic is taught and interpreted in a simple, helpful way." — Religious Tele- scope, REV. WILFRED S. HACKETT The Land of Your Sojournings I2rrio, cloth, net $1.00. "To pastors and laymen who find themselves, submerged inthe dispiritualizing atmosphere of our daily life, this true spiritual philosopher speaks with wise, m.ellow, teiider counsel. His style i§. luminous, expository and fraught with a weakh of illustrations." — Twentieth Century Pastor. THE CHURCH AND ITS WORK HENRY C. McCOMAS, Ph.D. The Psychology of Religious Sects A Comparison of Religious Types. Cloth, net $1.25. A study of tlie origin of the various denominations. IWhen and how did they begin? Is there real need for one hundred and eigthy odd sects in America or are they a positive hindrance to the Church? The scientific spirit ia jn evidence throughout these chapters but so, also is the spirit of reverence. The book is constructive not iconoclastic CHARLES STELZLE American Social and Religious Conditions Illustrated with numerous charts and tables. 12mOi cloth, net $1.00. This work may be used both as a text book for study classes and for general reading. It contains the findings of the Men and Religion Surveys in seventy principal cities, of which the author had charge. Mr. Stelzle also served as the dean of the Social Service throughout the Movement. Out of a wide and practical experience in City Work the author discusses a program for the Church, especially with regard to the "down-town" situation. The book contains many original charts and diagrann. CHARLES S. MACFARLAND Spiritual Culture and Social Service i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. A stirring call to service. Dr. Macfarland, as pastor ot Congregational churches in large industrial centres, has had first hand experience in some of the most pressing prob- lems now confronting the church. As secretary of the Social Service Commission of the Council of Churches of Christ in Ameriaa, he is now engaged in solving the problem in a larger way. He has a message to deliver and he presents it •with a force and conviction that cannot fail to deeply im- press and influence the reader. 'ARTHUR V. BABBS,A.B. The Law of the Tithe As Set Forth in the Old Testament. i2mo, cloth, net $1.50. "A book of very genuine scholarship— a complete histoiTr of the universality of the tithe — the ablest and perhaps the most interesting explanation of this ancient custom that ba9 appeared." — uV. Y. Christian Advocate. SOCIOLOGY AND PRACTICAL RELIGION FRED ERIC J. HASKIN ..^^ ^ Author of — ^■^-^— ^— — — ^— — The American Goventment The Immigrant : An Asset and a Liability i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. The basis for this book is a series of articles in nearly fifty leading dailies in the United States which attracted wide- spread interest and approval. The author, a well-known news- paper correspondent is noted for his accuracy and thorough- ness. He has treated each phase of the question in a pains- tking, scientific manner. The text bristles with statistics, illustrations, generalizations and deductions all welded to- gether into a crisp, straightforward narration of absorbing interest. It might very properly be called an encyclopedic handbook on the subject of Immigation. CHARLES STELZLE The Gospel of Labor l2mo, cloth, net 50c. This volume of talks to working men is characteristic of the author of "Letters From a Workingman." Dr. Stelzle is rightly called "The Apostle of the American Laborer.' Once a workingman himself he knows just how to reach the men of this class. The sympathy and understanding of like experiences inform his addresses and carry the message home to the heart. PROFESSOR JAMES R. HOJVERTON The Church and Social Reform i2mo, cloth, net 7Sc. This compact little volume on Christianity and social con- ditions presents the subject in three sections: First, "The Church and Revolutions of the Past"; Second, "The Causet of the Present Social Crisis"; Third, "The Church and Social Reforms of To-day." The student of social conditions will find here a very clear and satisfactory historical state- ment, a graphic analysis of the causes of the present discon- tent and a rationale of alleviation that will arouse discussion and open the eyes of Christian citizens to their duty in the present crisis. YOUNG MEN -■ JOHN DOUGLAS ADAM, P.P. Letters of Father and Son During a College Course i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. There is plenty of practical everyday common sense in these letters in addition to the spiritual philosophy which characterizes them. In twenty-four chapters life's great problems are discussed with freedom and insight. Study, recreation, friends, use of time, money, health, speech, thought, influence, religion, trouble, optimism and character are some of the subjects treated. FICTION, JUVENILE HENRY OTIS DWIGHT A Muslim Sir Galahad A Present Day Story of Islam In Turkey. i2mo, cloth, net $i.oo. A story of the Mohammedan world which holds the read- er's attention unfailingly from beginning to end. The narration of Selim, the Moslem's quest for a satisfying re- ligion has the quality of reality. Dramatic interest and thrills of adventure are here in full measure. It is a worthy addition to missionary narration and in view of recent por- tentious events in the near East a timely and acceptable work. CHARLES H. LERRIGO Doc Williams A Tale of the Middle West. i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. The story of a "doctor of the old school" with every ele- ment which makes a novel worth the reading, plot, character delineation, setting, style — all are here. Intensely human, natural, humorous, pathetic, joyous. The originality of the plot piques the reader's curiosity_ and the most jaded de- vourer of novels will find himself irresistibly held in delight- ful suspense. _ The sentiment and suggestion and mellow philosophy which run all through the story are altogether delightful. 7. T. THURSTON The Torch Bearer A Camp Fire Girls' Story. Illustrated, net $1.00. The author of "The Bishop's Shadow" and "The Scout Master of Troop s," has scored another conspicuous success in this new story of girl life. She shows conclusively that she knows how to reach the heart of a girl as well as that of a boy. The beautiful ritual and practices of "The Camp Fire Girls" are woven into a story of surpassing interest and charm. SOCIOLOGY AND PRACTICAL RELIGION PROF. GIOVANNI LUZZI, P.P. The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy 8vo, cloth, net $1.50. The author traces the history of Christianity in Italy from its dawn in Rome, through the Protestant development, giv- ing a concise history of the Bible in Italy, the founding of the Waldensian Mission among the Alps, the religious re- vival of 1800, the exile period; up to the present move- ment, termed "Modernism, an attempt to bring the Roman Catholic Church back to the simplicity of Christ. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY This book is due on the date indicated below, or at the expiration of a definite period after the date of borrowing, as provided by the rules of the Library or by special ar- rangement with the Librarian in charge. DATE BORROWED DATE DUE DATE BORROWED DATE DUE — 16Dec*3fe 1 1 i CZ8'63e)MB0 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 00571 02872 OT ^^\ 'S.\^^ Stubbs How Europe was won for Christi- ]^n 2 3 1914 i III iiiiilii