‘Their king is named Aelle.’
‘Alleluia!’ replied the monk, playing on the name of the king. ‘It is most fit that the love of God our Creator be sung in those parts.’
Fifteen years after this conversation took place in the market of Rome, the monk had become famous as Pope Gregory the First. Then, in fulfilment of the plans he had formed for rescuing the Angli from the wrath of God, he chose a monk named Augustine to make a journey to Britain with some companions. Augustine, with his small band, set out, but on reaching Gaul was so dismayed by the reports of the savage character of the people to whom he was bidden to go, that he turned back, and sought release from the task which had been imposed upon him. This Gregory refused, reminding him that ‘the more difficult the task, the greater is the reward.’
Augustine once more set out, and landed at Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of Thanet, in the Spring of the year 597. The king of Kent was then Aethelberht, who had married a Christian princess, the daughter of the king of the Franks. Thus the way had been made clear for the mission of Augustine, and Kent soon became a Christian kingdom.
King Aelle of Northumbria died in 588, and thirteen years later his son Edwin became king. Edwin had married the daughter of Aethelberht of Kent, Aethelburga by name, and with her there came to Eoferwic Paulinus, a monk.
For long this monk was unable to persuade Edwin to become a Christian; but in 626 there was called a meeting of the king’s Witan, or ‘wise men,’ each of whom was asked what he thought of the new doctrines then being preached by Paulinus.[[11]] After Coifi,[[12]] the king’s high priest, had expressed his opinion that the gods they worshipped had no power, one of the king’s counsellors broke in with these words:—
‘Thus it seems to me, O my king, that the life of man on earth, in comparison with the life unknown to us, is just as if you were sitting at table with your ealdormen and thegns in wintertide—when the fire was kindled and your hall made warm, while it rained and snowed outside—and there came a sparrow and quickly flew through the hall, coming in by one door and passing out by the other. During the time that he is passing through the hall he is safe from the winter’s storm, but it is only for the twinkling of an eye, and in the shortest space of time he passes from winter into winter.
‘So seems the life of man—it is ours for a little while, but what goes before it and what follows after we know not. Therefore if this teaching makes anything clearer and more certain, it is meet that we follow it.’
What an apt comparison—the life of a man is like the brief flight of a sparrow through a pleasant room! Many a time must those present when the words were spoken have seen a bewildered sparrow fly swiftly through the king’s hall, entering it to seek shelter from the storm without, and leaving it to seek safety from the smoke of the fire and the noise of men’s voices within. And what more suitable illustration of man’s ignorance of the hereafter could have been chosen? We can imagine its effect upon Coifi, who, on hearing the words of the king’s counsellor, exclaimed:—
‘I see clearly that what we have been worshipping is but naught. For the more earnestly I have sought the truth through our worship, the less I have found it. Therefore, O king, I now advise that we speedily destroy and burn with fire the altars which we hallowed without receiving any benefit.’