THE CONVERSION OF KING RATBODO
| dunes | miracle | indignation | devastating |
| righteous | policy | obstinate | development |
| terror | pagan | chieftain | abomination |
St. Wulfram and his monks had much work for a time. The Frisians came in crowds for Christian instructions and baptism. It was a great and hard task to teach human beings in the lowest stage of development. Moreover, the teachings of the missionaries were opposed in all things to the traditional customs of the people. Many wrongs, such as slavery, for instance, could not be set aside at once. Moreover, if the people were to be made peaceful and weaned from their wildness, they had to be taught other ways of support than plundering and hunting.
So the Benedictines taught the converts not only Christian doctrine, but how to plow and to plant. They built dunes to hold out the devastating sea, and sent to their abbey home for seeds and implements. In a few years the face of Frisia was greatly changed.
Ratbodo had given Wulfram land and a dwelling near his own residence. In this way he could best keep track of everything that happened at the mission.
The king himself remained obdurate in his paganism. Once he said, tauntingly, to the entreating Wulfram, that if the Christian God would work a miracle for him especially, he would be converted. Wulfram reminded him of the miracles he had seen and had not been converted. Then Ratbodo said that if the table in front of him were changed into gold, he would yield; but Wulfram, in righteous indignation, told him how childish was such a request.
All the while the chieftains were urging the king to send away the bishop. But he laughed at them, saying that what Wulfram had built up he himself would destroy in ten days when the time came, just as had been done in the case of many others. Even the king’s little son, Clodio, was baptized and died a Christian, but the king only smiled. His day was coming, he held.