58 Durham Cathedral, by Rev. William Greenwell. 



site of the Field of Flodden, appears to have got its name from 

 him. The Swale and the Glen are rivers associated with his 

 mission, and his well at Holystone, in the valley of the Coquet, 

 where he baptised, is familiar to us all. He was obliged, A.D. 

 633, to leave the country, when, after the death of Eadwin, slain 

 in the battle of Hethf eld, Northumbria was conquered by Penda 

 king of Mercia, and Cadwallon king of the Strath Clyde Britons, 

 and relapsed with its two kings into Paganism. I now come to 

 one of the greatest names of Northumbria — Oswald, who is 

 intimately associated with the Church of Durham, in connection 

 with its patron, Saint Cuthbert. A son of Aethelfrith, of the 

 royal house of Bernicia, he fled from his country, when a youth, 

 and took refuge in Scotland, where he became a convert to the 

 Christian faith. On his return to his own country, after defeat- 

 ing and killing Cadwallon at Hevenfield, near Hexham, he was 

 the means of introducing Christianity into it. I shall now have 

 a few words to say with regard to the place from whence North- 

 umbrian Christianity.came. I refer to lona. lona, which many 

 of you will know, is a small, low-lying, sterile, inhospitable 

 island upon the west coast of Scotland, and the last place likely 

 to be selected for a residence. This place, however, was chosen 

 by a great Irishman, descended from one of the lines of Irish 

 kings, his name Columba. He was a man of enormous energy, 

 and would have made an admirable commander and a great 

 soldier, had his energies been turned in that direction. The early 

 part of his life was intermixed with the feuds then prevailing, 

 and he was the cause of much bloodshed, and was compelled in 

 consequence to leave his native country. An exile from all he 

 loved, he came to lona, and there settled, and never returned to 

 Ireland, which was so dear to him, and for which through life he 

 longed. He lived at lona, and there founded a great missionary 

 church, and from thence the Christian faith was diffused through 

 a considerable part of Scotland. There were other centres from 

 which the Christian faith spread in that country, but we must 

 look to Columba as the origin, and to lona as the great centre 

 and source of Christianity in Scotland and the North. "We can 

 never think of lona without a deep feeling of veneration and re- 

 gard, and no Scotchman can visit or speak of it without strong 

 emotion. lona will always live in the memory of Scotland. 

 Scotland, narrow perhaps in some things, harsh it may be in 



