Thrones were placed for him and Bertha on the hillside, and the band of monks approached, bearing a silver cross, and chanting a hymn, with Augustine at their head.
Ethelbert listened attentively as Augustine told him about the Christian religion, and invited him to forsake the cruel bloodthirsty gods of the English.
'Your words,' he said, when the abbot had finished, 'are fair; but what you tell me is new and strange. I cannot leave all at once what I and my English folk have believed for so long. But let me think over what you say; and if any of my folk will believe what you believe, I will not hinder them.'
The monks were overjoyed at the King's answer. Bearing their silver cross in front of them, they entered the town of Canterbury.
'Turn from this city, O Lord,' they sang, 'Thy wrath and anger.'
Then in joy and thankfulness they sang 'Alleluia' in the streets, while the people looked on and wondered.
Ethelbert gave the missionaries a church to preach in, and he and his people often came to listen to them. So well did the good monks speak that after a little while the king consented to become a Christian, and was baptized, and many of his men with him; and Kent thus became the first Christian kingdom of England.
Many years afterwards, Ethelbert's daughter was given in marriage to Edwin, King of Northumbria. Edwin was a good and wise man; but he was a heathen. Among the people who accompanied the young queen to her northern home was her chaplain Paulinus, and it was the great wish both of Paulinus and of the queen that through their means Edwin might become converted to Christianity.
All that winter Edwin listened to the words of his queen and of Paulinus, and pondered them very deeply.
In the spring he called his wise men together, and asked them to advise him.