A week passed away, and Bega, absorbed in her devotional exercises, had become emaciated by the rigour of her fasting without heeding it; and as is usual in such cases, her spirit had become more etherealised and more susceptible of supernatural influences. After vespers one evening she returned to her lonely sleeping apartment, a bare and scantily furnished room, and lay down on her bed, consisting of a thin layer of straw on a hard, wooden pallet, with nothing more than a coarse rug for her coverlet. She slept for a short space, then awoke and rose to repeat the nocturnes, kneeling on the rough flooring stones. She then lay down again and composed herself to sleep, and was in the half-conscious state between sleeping and waking when she was aroused by hearing a passing-bell boom forth, which sounded like that of Streoneshalh, which was miles beyond earshot, and was the more remarkable as the bell of Hackness was much smaller and altogether different in tone. She listened with soul-thrilling awe, and thought, "Can it be that the holy mother is departing at this moment to her heavenly rest, and that the sound of the passing-bell is miraculously brought to mine ears?" Scarcely had the thought flashed across her mind, when, looking upward, the vaulted roof seemed to be melting away, like a mist under the influence of the morning sun. In a very short space of time it disappeared altogether, and there was presented to the eye of the gazer the expanse of sky studded with stars, sparkling like clusters of diamonds. Presently the knell of the passing-bell ceased. And there broke upon her ear the sound of distant vocal music. As it came nearer, it seemed different from any music she had ever heard; unearthly; heavenly; so ravishingly sweet was the melody. The words she was unable to comprehend, but there was something about them which seemed to declare them of celestial origin. With raptured ears she listened as the choir, which appeared to be floating in the air, came on and on until it sounded as if immediately overhead. All this while, too, a constantly increasing effulgence of supernatural light was diffusing itself over the firmament, and when the music came into close proximity to the cell, there burst upon her sight a vision, the glory of which she could have hitherto formed no conception of. It was that of a convoy of angels, fairer and more lovely in form and feature than anything ever conceived by artist or poet, or than ever trod the earth. It was they who were chanting the divine melody as they floated along overhead with an upward tendency; and in their midst was the beautified soul of the sainted mother of Streoneshalh, which they were escorting to the everlasting realms of purity and peace; of eternal rest, and an endless duration of unalloyed happiness. The rapt eyes of Bega were not allowed to rest long on this celestial vision; the group ascended higher and higher; the voices became fainter and fainter, until they were altogether lost; and Bega overcome with emotion, fell into an ecstatic trance, and when she awoke from it there was nothing to be seen but the glimmer of the moonshine on the walls and roof of her cell.
The next day a messenger arrived announcing the death of the Abbess, which he stated occurred immediately after nocturnes on the preceding night.
Bega remained a little while at Streoneshalh, and then went into Cumberland, and provided a religious house, called after her, St. Bees, where she spent the remainder of a most holy life.
[A Miracle of St. John.]
Two thousand years ago, what is now the East Riding of Yorkshire was chiefly forest land, with the exception of the Wold uplands, which were pastures, almost destitute of trees, having some semblance to the swelling and rolling waves of the ocean, where the Brigantes fed their flocks and herds, where they dwelt in scattered hamlets, and where they now sleep in their multitudinous tumuli. In the lowlands at the foot, the forest was very dense, and was the home of wolves, boars, deer, and other wild animals, which were hunted by the natives, who fed upon their flesh and clothed themselves with their skins. This was called the forest of Deira, and in one spot by the river Hull, a few miles distant from the Humber, was a cleared space, with an eminence in the midst, and at its foot, extending westward, a pool of water, afterwards a marsh or moor, and since drained, forming now a portion of the town of Beverley, its former condition being indicated by two parallel streets—Minster-moorgate, the place of the moor by the Minster; and Keldgate, the place of springs. This was a Druidical open air temple, where the mystical rites of Druidism were performed.
When the primitive Christian religion was introduced into Britain, it is presumed that a Christian church was established here, on the rising ground by the lake, as the early Christians built their churches, where practicable, on spots held sacred by the people, which supposition seems to be confirmed by the express statement that St. John rebuilt, not built, the church in Deira Wood. This early church, doubtless a very rude affair of timber and thatch, was destroyed or allowed to fall into ruin when the Saxons and Angles overspread the land and replaced the religion of Christ by that of Odin. It might possibly be repaired during the short period after the second introduction of Christianity by Paulinus and the conversion of King Eadwine, but, if so, would be again destroyed a few years after, under the desolating hands of Penda of Mercia, and Cadwalla, as it lay in ruins until the beginning of the eighth century, when it was restored on a grander scale by John, Archbishop of York.
St. John, the learned and pious prelate, one of the brightest luminaries of the Saxon Church, was a member of a noble Saxon family, a native of Harpham on the Wolds. He was born in the year 640, studied in the famous Theological School of St. Hilda at Streoneshalh, and became successively Bishop of Hagulstat (Hexham) and Archbishop of York, which latter see he held, with unblemished reputation and great usefulness, for a period of more than thirty-three years.