consecrated in Italy, brought the Gospel to the West Saxons, and received Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, for the place of his see. Northumbria was evangelized by Celtic missionaries who were not in communion with Rome and Canterbury. About the middle of the sixth century the Irish Scot, Columba, founded the monastery of Iona. He and his companions preached the Gospel to the northern Picts and the Scots of the western isles, and Iona became a centre of Christian light. During the reign of Eadwine, Oswald and Oswiu, princes of the rival Bernician line, had found shelter in Iona. Oswald returned to become king of Bernicia shortly after the death of Eadwine, and before long brought Deira also under his dominion. As soon as he had gained possession of the kingdom of Bernicia, he sent to Iona for missionaries to instruct his people. Aidan, a missionary from Columba’s house, came to him, and so it came to pass that Bernicia received Christianity from Celtic teachers, from Aidan and his fellow-workers. Foundation of the see of Lindisfarne, 635.Oswald warmly seconded their efforts, and fixed the see of Aidan, who was in bishop’s orders, in Lindisfarne, or Holy Isle, not far from Bamborough, where he resided; for though he ruled over both the Northumbrian kingdoms, and completed the minster at York, he made his home in the North, among his own people. Bernicia thus became the stronghold of Celtic Christianity under the rule of the kings of the house of Ida, while the Christians of Deira were naturally more inclined to the Roman usages which had been introduced by Paulinus and practised by Eadwine and his queen. Aidan built a monastery at Lindisfarne, and peopled it with monks from Iona. This gave him a good supply of clergy, and the work of evangelization prospered and took deep root. The greatness of Oswald provoked Penda to renew his struggle with the northern kingdom, and the Northumbrian king was defeated and slain at Maserfield. As his foes closed round him he prayed for their conversion. His words sank deeply into men’s hearts. “‘May God have mercy on their souls,’ said Oswald, as he fell to earth,” was a line handed down from generation to generation. From his hermit’s retreat on Farne Island, Aidan beheld the thick clouds of smoke rise from the country round Bamborough, and cried, “Behold, Lord, the evil that Penda doeth!” Still the work of God went on; and when Oswiu came to the throne the prayer of Oswald received its answer, for a marriage between his house and the house of Penda led to the evangelization of the Mercians and Middle Angles by the monks of Iona. From them too the East Saxons received the Gospel, and Cedd, an English monk of Lindisfarne, was consecrated to the bishopric that had been held by the Roman Mellitus.

By the middle of the seventh century only Kent and East Anglia remained in full and exclusive communion with Rome; for Sussex was still heathen, Wini, the West Saxon bishop, acted with British bishops, and Scottish Christianity prevailed in all the rest of England. The Scottish missionaries were full of zeal and self-devotion, and were masters of a considerable store of learning. Their nature was impulsive; while they were loving and tender-hearted, passionate invectives came as readily from their lips as words of love. Celtic Christianity was a religion of perpetual miracles, of deep and varying emotions, and of contempt for worldly things, that, however noble in itself, was sometimes manifested extravagantly. While its teachers seldom failed to win men’s love, they were not equally successful in influencing their conduct. It was well that the English Church turned away from them, for their religious system could never have produced an organized ecclesiastical society. It was monastic rather than hierarchical, and a Celtic priest-abbot was a far more important person than a bishop who was not the ruler of an abbey, though in England the bishops were probably always abbots. In founding their sees they sought seclusion rather than good administrative centres, and the bishop’s monastery was less a place of diocesan government than the headquarters of missionary effort. They had no regular diocesan system, and bishops and clergy ministered where they would. Their monasticism was of a specially ascetic character. Both Aidan and Cuthberht loved to leave the society of the monks at Lindisfarne, and to retire to the barren little Farne Island, where they could only hear the roaring of the northern ocean and the crying of the sea-birds. Cuthberht, indeed, even after he joined the Roman Church, kept the characteristics of the Scottish monk. He left the duties of his bishopric altogether and ended his days in his island-hermitage. This love of asceticism was fatal to the well-being of the Church; the individual soul was everything; the Church was nothing; and though great victories were won over heathenism, the Scottish Church remained without corporate life. Lastly, it was not in communion with Rome, and so lay outside Catholic Christendom. And though it had much to offer the English both in religion and learning, every gift would have been rendered fruitless by isolation from the progressive life of Western Christendom.