76 



The Life and Times of Aldhelm. 



results as regards the real progress of Christianity ; — and these 

 were owing to no little extent to the efforts of Aldhelm. 



We are all aware of the bitter enmity that existed between the 

 Celtic Churches and those which recognized the authority of the 

 successors of Augustine. Hard things have been often said con- 

 cerning the early British Christians, and they have been accused 

 of grudging the blessings of the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons. 

 Apparently there was a fixed determination among them not to 

 attempt the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon race. Still we must 

 not be too severe upon them, for the wrongs they had received 

 from their persecutors had been awful in the extreme. This does 

 not of course justify their conduct ; still one cannot but feel 

 that their difficulty arose to some extent from the contemptuous 

 unwillingness on the part of the Saxon to listen to the teaching of 

 the despised and persecuted Briton. The fierceness of the hatred 

 that existed between them for a time rendered all union impossible. 

 Even trivial matters such as the right day for observing Easter, 

 and a peculiar mode of tonsure, were exaggerated into importance, 

 and raised up as barriers against all communion between the two 

 churches. The determination of the British Bishops which was 

 not to be broken by the insolent demands of Augustine, had as yet 

 refused to yield to the more politic diplomacy of Theodore. 



But a change was coming over the scene. Berhtwald had the 

 gratification of seeing, at the very commencement of his archiepisco- 

 pate, a code of laws promulgated by King Ina, in which Christi- 

 anity was fully acknowledged as the basis of all moral and social 

 obligation ; and we can hardly doubt that to this important step, 

 Ina was urged by his friend and kinsman Aldhelm. And then, 

 immediately afterwards, a desire for union and reconciliation was 

 evinced by the Celtic Bishops who expressed their readiness to 

 yield on the question of Easter. In Cornwall the Bishops retained 

 the old usage, but they were met by Berhtwald in a truly 

 Christian spirit. He employed Aldhelm to write a letter to 

 Geraint, Prince of Cornwall, — the letter is still extant — and by 

 this means, we are told, many of their objections were removed. 

 Peace was soon afterwards cemented between the two churches ; — 



