husband with Christianity; and urging her to soften his prepossessions against it, and to impress upon his senses the excellence of the faith she had adopted, and the admirable nature of its future rewards.17 These letters were received and considered; but Paulinus found that the loftiness of the king's mind, and the natural pride of the Anglo-Saxon nation, could not be easily brought to stoop to the humility and gentleness of the Christian precepts. In this juncture he appears to have come to the knowledge of the king's dream at the court of Redwald, and he made an ingenious use of it. 18 The vision at its departure was said to have laid its right hand on the king's head, and to have exclaimed: "When this sign is repeated, remember this conference, and perform your promise of obeying what will then be disclosed to you." Paulinus, without appearing to have had any previous knowledge of this dream, one day entered the king's apartment as he was pursuing his meditations on the opposing religions; and advancing with a solemn air, imitated the action of the imaginary figure, and placed his right hand on his sovereign's head, at the same time asking him if he remembered that sign. The king's sensibility was instantly affected. His dream and promise rushed upon his mind. He did not pause to consider that Paulinus might, from his queen or his intimate friends, have become acquainted with his own account of his believed vision. All seemed supernatural, and Paulinus to be the actual vision that had addressed him. He threw himself at the bishop's feet, who, pursuing the impression which he had excited, raised him, and exhorted him to lose 17 Bede, lib. ii. c. 11. VOL. I. X 18 Ibid. c. 12. CHAP. VII. 625. BOOK III. 625. no time in fulfilling his thrice-repeated engagement; and reminded him that this alone would deliver him from the eternal evils of disobedience.19 The king, now seriously affected by the important question, summoned his witena-gemot, that, if they participated in his feelings, all might be baptized together. When they met, he proposed the new worship for the subject of their deliberations, and required each to express his feelings without reserve. Coifi, the high priest of their idols, as the first in rank, spoke first; and unless the coarseness of his mind was that of the country, must have surprised the king. His speech, from the singularity of the criterion by which he governed the faint moral feeling he possessed, deserves a literal translation. "You see, O king! what is now preached to us. I declare to you most truly what I have most certainly experienced, that the religion which we have hitherto professed contains no virtue at all, and as little utility. No one of all your court has been more attentive than I have been to the worship of our gods; and yet many have received far richer benefits, far greater honours, and have prospered more in all that men transact or pursue, than I have. But if these gods had been of any real worth, would they not in preference have assisted me who have never neglected them ?20 If then, on due inquiry, you shall perceive that these new things which are preached to us will be better and more efficacious, let us hasten to adopt them without any delay." This effusion of self-interest would lead one to suspect that the effects of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of 19 Bede, lib. ii. c. 12. 20 This seems a natural strain of reason with the priests of idols when they choose to express their opinions; and, perhaps also, of many others; for at Benares, as Mr. Smith wrote to England, "I asked a Brahmin why they took no notice of some stone gods lying under a wall?" "We worshipped them several years," answered the Brahmin, "but not deriving any benefit, we laid them aside, knowing they are but stones, and are not able to do good or evil." Miss. Reg. p. 78. Romanised and Christianised Britain, and of the civilisation, luxuries, and mental cultivation which it had, to a certain extent, exhibited to the Saxon eye, had already shaken their attachment to the rude superstitions of their ancestors; or the high priest of their national deities would not have, so feelingly, expatiated on his comparative neglect. This circumstance will contribute to account for the ease with which Christianity was re-established in the island. The next speaker discovered a mind unusually enlarged for a people hitherto so unaccustomed to intellectual investigations. "The present life of man, O king! seems to me, if compared with that after-period which is so uncertain to us, to resemble a scene at one of your wintry feasts. As you are sitting with your ealdormen and thegns about you, the fire blazing in the centre, and the whole hall cheered by its warmth; and while storms of rain and snow are raging without, a little sparrow flies in at one door, roams around our festive meeting, and passes out at some other entrance. While it is among us, it feels not the wintry tempest. It enjoys the short comfort and serenity of its transient stay; but then, plunging into the winter from which it had flown, it disappears from our eyes. Such is here the life of man. It acts and thinks before us; but, as of what preceded its appearance among us we are ignorant, so are we of all that is destined to come afterwards. If, then, on this momentous future, this new doctrine reveals any thing more certain or more reasonable, it is in my opinion entitled to our acquiescence." 21 Bede, lib. iii. c. 13. " 21 Alfred's translation of this interesting speech presents it to us as near to its original form as we can now obtain it. "Thyrlic me is gerepen, Cyning! this andparde lif manna on eopthan, to pithmezenýsse thære tide the ur uncuth is, spa gelic, spa thu æt sræfendum sitte mid thinum ealdonmannum thegnum on pinter tide 7 sý rýn onæled, 7 in heall gepynmed. J hit ninerniþe stynine ute. Cume donne an Speappa 7 hpædlice phur Cuph Fleo 7 cume uph opne dupu in; Dunh obre ut gepite. pet he on da tid de he inne bib ne bih hrined mid þý stopnie das pintper. ac bib an eagan bɲhyzm CHAP. VII. 625. BOOK III. 625. The other witena and the royal counsellors exhibited similar dispositions. Coifi desired to hear from Paulinus an exposition of the Deity. The bishop obeyed, and the Angle priest exclaimed, "Formerly I understood nothing that I worshipped. The more I contemplated our idolatry, the less truth I found in it. But this new system I adopt without hesitation; for truth shines around it, and presents to us the gifts of eternal life and blessedness. Let us then, O king! immediately anathematise and burn the temples and altars which we have so uselessly venerated.” On this bold exhortation, he was asked who would be the first to profane the idols and their altars, and the inclosures with which they were surrounded. The zealous convert answered, "I will: as I have led the way in adoring them through my folly, I will give the example of destroying them in obedience to that wisdom which I have now received from the true God." He requested of the king weapons and a war-horse. It was a maxim of their ancient religion, that no priest should carry arms, or ride on any horse but a mare; an interesting rule to separate the ministers of their religion from the ferocity of war. The priest girded on a sword, and, brandishing a spear, mounted the king's horse, and rode to the idol temple. The people, without, thought him mad. He hurled his spear against the temple to profane it, and then commanded his companions to destroy all the building and its surrounding inclosures. The scene of this event was a little to the east of York, beyond the river Derwent, at a place, in Bede's time, called Godmunddingaham.22 lærte ræt. ac he sona of pintra in pinten eft cýmeh'.' Spa donne di monna lir to meomyclum ræce taryneh, hpær dæn ronegange. oppe hpæt dær æfzetrylige pe ne cunnon. Foppon gir peor nipe læn opihe cuplicne 7 genirenliche bpinge. heo dær pynthe is † pe dæne rýligean.." P. 516. 22 Bede, c. 13. It is still called Godmundham, or the home of the mund, or protection of the gods. The effect of these sudden acts of desecrating the great scenes or objects of idolatrous veneration has been recently witnessed in Owhyhee. Edwin and his nobility were soon afterwards baptized, in the eleventh year of his reign. In 632, he persuaded Eorpwald of East Anglia, the son of Redwald, to imitate his example. Sigebert, the brother and successor of Eorpwald, not only increased the diffusion of Christianity in East Anglia, but applied so closely to the study of it as to be called by the Chronicler, "Most Learned." 23 Edwin reached the summit of human prosperity: a considerable part of Wales submitted to his power, and the Menavian islands; and he was the first of the Angles that subdued or defeated all the AngloSaxon kingdoms but Kent. 24 The internal police This island, containing 4000 square miles, is one complete mass of lava, and has the largest volcanic crater we know of, being eight miles round. The goddess of fire, Peli, and her subordinate fire gods, are supposed to preside over it, and when offended, to visit mankind with thunder, earthquake, and streams of liquid fire. Fifty cones, of which above twenty continually emitted pyramids of flame and burning matter, riveted the terrified people to the worship of the supposed fiery deities, till Kapiolani, a female chief, having embraced Christianity, resolved to descend into the flaming crater, and to convince the inhabitants of the nullity of the gods they feared, by braving them in their volcanic homes. "If I do not return safe," said the heroic woman, "then continue to worship Peli: but if I come back unhurt, adore the God who created her." Kapiolani went down the steep and difficult side of the crater, and arriving at the bottom, pushed a stick into the liquid lava and stirred the ashes of the burning lake. The charm of superstition was at that moment broken. It was expected that the goddess, armed with flame and sulphureous smoke, would have burst forth and destroyed the impious intruder. But seeing the fire roll as harmlessly as if no one were present, the people "acknowledged the greatness of the God of Kapiolani, and from that time few have been the offerings and little the reverence offered to the fires of Peli." Lord Byron's Voyage to the Sandwich Islands, 1827, p. 188. The missionaries had made no general impression, nor could the king and chiefs subdue the worship, till the rod of Kapiolani thus dissolved the spell. 23 Doctissimus. Flor. Wig. 233, 234. Analogous to Edwin's conduct in this overthrow of the Saxon superstitions, was that of Riho Riho, king of the Sandwich Islands, in May, 1819, which may be here noticed as illustrating the Northumbrian revolution, and confirming its historical probability, and thereby our Bede's veracity. After several conferences with his nobles on the absurdities of their religion, which the visits of Captain Cook and others, and some American missionaries, had led his father's mind and his own to perceive, he declared his resolution, if the chiefs consented, to desecrate their sacred morais, and to destroy their idols. His mother inquired, "What harm their gods had done?" Nay," answered the nobles, "what good? Are not the offerings we are required to make, burdensome ? Are not the human sacrifices demanded by the priests, cruel and useless? Do not the foreigners laugh at our supposing these ill-shaped logs of wood can protect us?' The maternal queen replied, "Do as you will;" and on the same day their consecrated places and images were destroyed, and Christianity was soon after introduced into these interesting islands. See Ellis's Narrative, and Lord Byron's Voyage, for the fuller details. 24 Flor. Wig. 233. Sax. Chron. 27. Bede, ii. c. 9. and 16. The Menavian CHAP. VII. 628. |