By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 77 



the consequence of the mild and fatherly rule of Berhtwald, and 

 the wise and charitable counsels of Aldhelm. 



No doubt there were many abuses and corruptions even in this 

 early age of the church. But though a tendency to superstition 

 prevailed, no one can read the account of the doings of the latter 

 part of the seventh century without seeing that it was a turning 

 point in the history of the church in this country, and allowing 

 that there must have been real progression in vital Christianity as 

 evidenced by the wonderful change which took place in the whole 

 state of society. — " War, which had formerly been the pastime of 

 the great, and the chief employment of a people eager of plunder, 

 was now regarded as a cruel necessity from the excitement of which 

 Kings and Princes were eager to escape. A desire to enjoy the 

 pleasures of retirement and the spiritual enthusiasm of the con- 

 templation of life became a passion. Nobles left their halls and 

 the mead-bench, Queens their palaces, and Kings, the descendants of 

 Woden, the pomp and circumstance of war, when the duties of the 

 royal vocation could be performed by younger men and the public 

 welfare no longer demanded their services. By retirement, at 

 that period of our history, was meant a monastic retreat ; but we 

 know from Bede that it was not necessary for every one who, at this 

 period joined a monaster}', to bind himself to remain a monk for 

 ever, or even to seclude himself from society." ^ — Such an altered 

 state of things attests the reality of the work that had been going 

 on for some years previously. Making every allowance for wild 

 enthusiasm, a flame easily kindled and as easily extinguished, we 

 must admit that in the days of Berhtwald there was what in these 

 latter times men would not scruple to call a general revival of 

 religion. The prevalent feeling of the age was the love of piety, 

 and to this result no one contributed more effectually than the good 

 Abbot of Malmesbury. 



It was not wonderful that such a man, when the necessities of 



the church required for its due superintendence an increase in the 



number of its Bishops, should be marked out as eminently fitted 



for that high office. Hence in 705, on the death of Hsedda, 



' Hook's Archbishops of Canterbury, i., 180. 



