132 CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 



scolding' having been tlie last but one. I accept the story as 

 given by Bede, but withold an expression of opinion as to 

 Augustine's part in it. Augustine proposed that some afflicted 

 person should be brought before them, and each party should try 

 to heal him by the efficacy of their prayers. The Britons 

 consented, but unwillingly, and a blind man was brought. The 

 British Priests did what they could, but they could do nothing. 

 Then Augustine knelt down and prayed, and immediately the 

 man received his sight. Thereupon the Britons confessed that 

 Augustine's was the true way of righteousness. But, they said, 

 they could not commit themselves to a change from their ancient 

 customs, without the consent and permission of those whom they 

 represented. They asked that a second conference should be 

 held, when more of them would come." 



Here we have the partisan version of the story by Bede. 

 It is amusing to compare with this the account given by an Irish 

 early writer of a similar conclave held at Old Leighlin, in 630, 

 when an admonitory letter to the bishops of Ireland, from 

 Honorius I., was read to them. S. Laserian, abbot of Leighlin, 

 strongly advocated the introduction of the Roman computation of 

 Easter, according to the Papal letter. But S. Fintan Munu of 

 Taghmon vehemently oppossed this, and appealed to the judgment 

 of Grod. He asked to have a house set in a blaze, and that one 

 of the Eoman party and one of his Celtic adherents should go into 

 the flames. Those who favoured the Latin church shrank from 

 the ordeal.* 



"The story goes, Bede says, that to the second conference 

 there came no less than seven Bishops of the Britons ; to meet 

 the one only Bishop the English Church possessed. There came 

 also, many very learned men chiefly from their most noble 

 monastery. . . .Bangor ys y Cold, Bangor under the Wood, 10 or 

 12 miles south of Chester. . . .Before the sacred conference, the 

 British leaders consulted a holy and prudent man, who lived the 

 anchorite life among them, on this question, ' Ought they, on the 

 teaching of Augustine, to desert their own traditions ? ' I feel 

 sure that we must credit them with putting the question in full 

 earnest : it seems to me certain that their minds were open to 



*Vitfe SS, Hibern., in Cod. Salamanc, p. 502. 



