them with interest, he asked from what country they were brought, and was told from the Island of Britain, whose inhabitants were of like personal appearance. He inquired whether the people of the island were Christians, or still involved in the errors of paganism, and was informed that they were pagans. "Alas! what a pity," he said, "that the author of darkness should be possessed of such fair countenances, and that while so beautiful in outward aspect their minds should be void of inward grace." He asked again, “What was the name of the nation to which they belonged?" and was answered that they were called Angles. "It is good," he said, "for they have angel faces, and it becomes such to be co-heirs with the angels in heaven." "And what is the name," he proceeded, " of the province from which they come?" He was told that the natives of the province were called Deira. "It is well, he said; "De ird-withdrawn from the wrath of God and called to the mercy of Christ." "And how is the king of the province called?" They told him hi name was Ælle; and he answered, alluding to th resemblance of the name to Hallelujah, "It is fitting that the praise of God the Creator should be sung in those regions."1

The incident made a great impression upon the abbot's mind, and he conceived the idea of putting himself at the head of a band of missionaries and proceeding to the conversion of these interesting people.

1 John the Deacon, writing in the ninth century, tells the same story in nearly the same words.

2 Gregory's biographers, John the Deacon and Paul the Deacon, differ as to the date of this incident; one says it was before Gregory went to Constantinople, and the other says after. It was probably in 586 or 587 A.D.

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YORKSHIRE SLAVE-BOYS IN THE ROMAN FORUM 17

The bishop granted his request, and Gregory started
with some companions.
But when he was missed,
and the cause of his absence was known, the people.
beset the Pope in St. Peter's and clamoured for his
recall. He had already gone three days' journey
when the messengers overtook him. The story runs
that he was reading at midday while his companions
rested, when a locust alighted upon his book. He
called his companions' attention to it, and said, "Lo-
custa signifies Loco Sta, Stay in this place, and portends
that we shall not be allowed to continue our journey;
but rise, saddle the beasts, and let us haste on our way
as far as we are permitted." But while he spoke the
messengers arrived to recall him, and he dutifully
returned with them to the city.

Four or five years afterwards (590 A.D.), Gregory became Bishop. The early years of his pontificate were no doubt fully occupied with the pressing political dangers of the city and the manifold occupations of the See. But after six years (596 A.D.) the old design came again into his mind, and he began to look about for means of putting it into execution. A letter written in the early part of the year 596 seems to indicate one plan which occurred to him. He had recently sent one of his priests, Candidus, to take charge of a small estate at Marseilles belonging to the ing See of Rome. The oversight had usually been undertaken by the Bishop of Arles, on behalf of his brother of Rome, and the Bishop of Rome had paid his brother of Arles the compliment of sending him the pall in return for his services; but Gregory had come to suspect that the returns from the estate had not been so great as they ought to have been, so he sent an

the

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ne

agent of his own to take charge of it. Gregory began about this time to adopt the same policy on the other distant estates of the See, because it gave him trustworthy agents of his own for the general business and interests of the See scattered in various countries. In the year 596 A.D., Gregory, in writing to Candidus, bids him, among other things, to look out for and purchase English and Saxon boys of seventeen or eighteen years of age, and send them to Rome; intending, no doubt, to have them educated and ordained and sent to preach to their fellow-countrymen.

It was a usual practice for wealthy people to have slaves carefully selected and educated for the higher duties of their households, for physician or secretary or steward, for tutor to the children, or man of letters, or singer or musician or artist. This is not the only example of slaves being trained up for the service of religion. Aidan of Northumberland used to buy the freedom of slaves, unjustly deprived of liberty, and educate them in his schools, and ordain some of them as priests. Before the end of the year, however, the bishop had adopted a speedier method and a larger plan.

Up to this time we know nothing of mission work undertaken by the Church of Rome, but we know that the conversions of the earlier centuries in the civilised countries of the world were undertaken on the apostolic model. St. Paul's work is that which is best known to us, and we remember that he was accustomed to take with him one or more companions, and to go from town to town, preaching. Many of the early missions were the solitary enterprise of a single enthusiast, as Patrick, Ninian, Birinus, Felix, in our

YORKSHIRE SLAVE-BOYS IN THE ROMAN FORUM 19

own Church history. But the Celtic churches had adopted a different method. They were accustomed to send out a company of monks the favourite number was an abbot and twelve monks, after the pattern of our Lord and His apostles-who should found a monastery in the country to be evangelized; to serve as a pattern of Christian life and a centre of Christian teaching. This method was largely adopted in subsequent times; and perhaps might be wisely used now in certain circumstances. For it seems as if the two methods were adapted to two different sets of circumstances; the one to the safety of travel and freedom of intercourse which existed in the Roman Empire, and to the work of presenting the new religion to the intelligence of civilised people; the other to the conditions of life among barbarous peoples.

Whether, in imitation of other missions, or from an independent view of its wisdom in the present circumstances, Gregory resolved to adopt the latter method, and to plant a Christian colony in the country which was the object of his solicitude. It was a bold and grand design, worthy of the great man who conceived it. He found the agents for its accomplishment ready to his hand in his own Monastery of St. Andrew's. He selected about thirty of its monks, and charged Augustine its prior with the leadership of the enterprise.

This is our earliest introduction to Augustine, the man who holds so distinguished a place in the history of the English Church. Of his parentage and previous life we know absolutely nothing. We shall have to study him for ourselves, as we are used to study a new acquaintance who suddenly enters into the sphere of

our life to play an influential part in it, and slowly to form our opinion of him from his words and acts. There is this strong presumption in his favour at the outset, that the man whom Gregory chose as prior of his own convent, and then judged to be a fit man to take the lead in so important and difficult an enterprise, must have been a man of piety and ability, and a man to be trusted.