2 
knowledge of him, was a man of such 
indomitable missionary activity that 
he must have been an inspiring and 
powerful preacher. One would like 
to have been in one of those vast open- 
air gatherings in some hollow among 
the hills, and caught the enthusiasm 
which swept like a tidal wave over the 
barbarians, submerging multitudes in- 
to the faith. One of the most pictur- 
esque figures of the time is St. Cuth- 
bert, seen in popular belief seated on 
a rock at Lindisfarne, a cloud-wrapt 
form, fashioning the little fossils which 
still bear the name of ‘St. Cuthbert’s 
beads.’ But the saint was no mere 
recluse or fantastic wonder-worker ; 
under his rule, missionaries from Iona 
were the apostles to the savage tribes 
of Northern Europe. These preachers 
were not of the academic type; they 
did not wear soft clothing or dwell in 
kings’ houses; they were voices cry- 
ing in the wilderness, summoning men 
to repentance and preaching the king- 
dom of God. Later, the successors of 
these pioneers carried their zealous 
propaganda to the shores of the Baltic 
and the forests of Germany, and with 
their fiery eloquence and wholesale 
methods of conversion swept whole 
tribes of the barbarians into the 
Church; pagan deities were rechris- 
tened with names of saints, forms of 
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christian worship supplanted the rites 
of Odin, and the Conversion of the 
Northern nations took its place in 
history. 
The Venerable Bede, in his monas- 
tery at Jarrow, is to be regarded as a 
scholar rather than a preacher. It 
was his delight, he tells us, to be 
“always learning or writing or teaching 
something.” He was what we call a 
many-sided man ; grammarian, philos- 
opher, historian, Bible translator and 
preacher. None of the remains of his 
pulpit eloquence have come down to 
us, but such a man could hardly have 
failed to bean interesting and powerful 
preacher, at least to intelligent hear- 
ers, even if he lacked the vehemence 
ot John Knox who in his old age and 
feebleness, when he had to be lifted 
into the pulpit, ‘before he was done 
was like to bing the pulpit into blads 
and fly out of it.” With Bede we 
naturally associate his patron the good 
King Alfred, himself like our strenu- 
ous Chief Magistrate not only a soldier 
and a statesman, but a man of letters 
and a lay preacher, Men like these 
constitute the true defence of nations, 
and men like these have never been 
wanting in England’s island story. 
Most of Bede’s writings are in Latin, 
the literary language of his age. His 
translation of the gospel of John is in 
Anglo-Saxon, the language of the 
people. The story of its completion 
has been often told. The pupils were 
gathered around the master ; “there is 
but one chapter more, but. you have 
not strength left”, said the youthful 
scribe ; ‘‘write quickly,” replied Bede ; 
the day wore on; “there is only one 
sentence left ; ’ the last words were 
dictated ; ‘‘it is finished, dear master ” 
“Consummatiun est’, responded Bede, 
and being helped to his knees repeated 
the ‘‘Glorza,”’ and the gentle spirit was 
at rest. 
Even after Saxon England had been 
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converted to the christian faith, over 
large districts and for long years in 
succession the offices of religion mostly 
ceased. What with Vikings in ‘“‘pyrate 
galleys warping down’’, Danish hordes 
ravaging with fire and swcrd, beacons 
flaming, harvests burning, there was 
little opportunity for preachers to 
exercise their functions. With the 
establishment of something like order 
under the iron rule of the Normans, 
many ecclesiastics were imported into 
the realm, but with the exception of 
high officials ltke Lanfranc the clergy 
were poorly furnished intellectuallye 
for their work. Preaching was almost 
the least of the duties of the parish 
priest ; if he could manage to mumble 
over the Creed and the Pater Noster, 
it was about all that could be expected 
of him. But better days were dawn- 
ing ; the influence of the Renaissance 
and the printing press in England 
evoked a spirit among the people 
which demanded intelligence in the 
clergy and lifted the pulpit out of the 
degradation into which it had fallen. 
Some of the itinerant preachers 
from the 10th to the 12th century, in 
‘sandal shoon and scallop shell”, 
palmers returned from the Holy Land, 
found willing hearers by the wayside 
or at the market cross, and devout 
purchasers of their relics—a rosary, 
a bit of the wood of the true cross, a 
thorn from the crown. These preach- 
ers were often held in great venera- 
tion, but the common lot of preaching 
friars sunk after Chaucer’s time more 
and more below respect. 
The rise of the great cathedral 
those marvellous creations of genius 
and devotion in which poetry, art and 
religion seem crystalized into stone, 
had little to do with the preaching 
vocation ; they were not designed for 
purposes ‘of oral instruction, the pulpit 
being but an insignificant feature ; 
with their fretted roofs, clustering 
pillars and long-drawn aisles, they 
were better suited to spectacular 
effect than to preaching and hearing ; 
to autiphon and processional, pealing 
organs, high altars, “dim religious 
light,” liturgy, ritual. The building 
of parish churches all over England 
was a better indication of the increas- 
ing power of the pulpit in English 
civilization, and brought the preacher 
into closer contact with the people. 
Few of the early English preachers 
have left distinguished names; they 
are overshadowed in history by the 
soldiers and statesmen, and their 
voices are often lost in the din of 
war. But they must be reckoned with 
as among the great moral forces that 
have made England what she is today, 
one of the greatest, freest, best gov- 
erned nations of earth. It is a far cry 
from Patricius and Cuthbert to Canon 
Liddon and Charles Spurgeon, but it 
