By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 



73 



Bishop of the Mauritius, who has lately visited Madagascar, 

 strikingly shews, the seed, though trampled under foot, has all 

 along lived, and germinated in secret, ready again to blossom 

 when providential circumstances shall favor its development. Even 

 so was it in our own country in Anglo-Saxon times. Tens of 

 thousands of souls gathered within the fold of the Church of Christ 

 within but a few years shew, that when the sower came forth to 

 sow his seed the soil was already prepared for its reception. 



Of Aldhelm's life as Abbot of Malmesbury very few details are 

 preserved to us. Under his care and guidance his monastery soon 

 acquired fame as a seat of piety and learning. It became moreover 

 a centre of religious influence over all the surrounding country. 

 The chroniclers are unanimous in bearing witness to Aldhelm's 

 unceasing efforts to do good, and to his constant acts of painful 

 self-denial, notwithstanding much weakness of body, that he might 

 shew the example of a holy life to all who came under his rule. 

 His earnestness was manifested by the establishment of two smaller 

 monasteries, one at Bradford on Avon, and another at Frome, over 

 which he also presided as Abbot. At Malmesbury he built two 

 churches, one within the monastery, and another without its walls 

 for the villagers or towns-people ; the former of which he erected 

 on the foundations of an old British Church 1 and dedicated to 

 St. Peter and St. Paul, in that age the favourite Saints of the 

 Anglo-Saxons. The Latin verses which he composed on the 

 occasion of the formal consecration of his church are preserved to 

 us by William of Malmesbury. 2 



One anecdote which is related concerning him, and which 

 belongs to the period during which he resided here, is too charac- 

 teristic to be omitted, the more so as William of Malmesbury 

 professes to have obtained it from the manual or note-book of King 

 Alfred. Observing with pain that the country-people who came 



1 In like manner the churches erected in the 7th century at Canterbury, and 

 Glastonbury, were built on the foundations, or from the ruins, of older churches. 

 The Churches of St. Paul's and Westminster also were restorations by Mellitus, 

 Bishop of London, of buildings which had been formerly consecrated by the 

 Celtic Bishops. 



2 They are printed by Wright in his " Biograph. Liter.," p. 213. 



