F. 3.—­And while the light of the Gospel was thus spreading on every side from our land, Britain was also becoming all too famous as the nurse of error.  The British Pelagius,[427] who erred concerning the doctrine of free-will, grew to be a heresiarch of the first order;[428] and his follower Fastidius, or Faustus, the saintly Abbot of Lerins in the Hyeres, the friend of Sidonius Apollinaris,[429] was, in his day, only less renowned.  He asserted the materiality of the soul.  Both were able writers; and Pelagius was the first to adopt the plan of promulgating his heresies not as his own, but as the tenets of supposititious individuals of his acquaintance.

F. 4.—­Pelagianism spread so widely in Britain that the Catholics implored for aid from over-sea.  St. Germanus of Auxerre, and St. Lupus, Bishop of Troyes (whose sanctity had disarmed the ferocity even of Attila), came[430] accordingly (in 429) and vindicated the faith in a synod held at Verulam so successfully that the neighbouring shrine of St. Alban was the scene of a special service of thanksgiving.  In a second Mission, fifteen years later, Germanus set the seal to his work, stamping out throughout all the land both this new heresy and such remains of heathenism as were still to be found in Southern Britain.  While thus engaged on the Border he found his work endangered by a raiding host of Picts or Saxons, or both.  The Saint, who had been a military chieftain in his youth, promptly took the field at the head of his flock, many of whom were but newly baptized.  It was Easter Eve, and he took advantage of the sacred ceremonies of that holy season, which were then actually performed by night.  From the New Fire, the “Lumen Christi,” was kindled a line of beacons along the Christian lines, and when Germanus intoned the threefold Easter Alleluia, the familiar strain was echoed from lip to lip throughout the host.  Stricken with panic at the sudden outburst of light and song, the enemy, without a blow, broke and fled.[431]

F. 5.—­This story, as told by Constantius, and confirmed by both Nennius and Bede, incidentally furnishes us with something of a key to the main difficulty in accepting the widely-spread Romano-British Christianity to which the foregoing citations testify.  What, it is asked, has become of all the Romano-British churches?  Why are no traces of them found amongst the abundant Roman remains all over the land?  That they were the special objects of destruction at the Saxon invasion we learn from Gildas.  But this does not account for their very foundations having disappeared; yet at Silchester[432] alone have modern excavations unearthed any even approximately certain example of them.  Where are all the rest?

F. 6.—­The question is partly answered when we read that the soldiers of Germanus had erected in their camp a church of wattle, and that such was the usual material of which, even as late as 446, British churches were built (as at Glastonbury).  Seldom indeed would such leave any trace behind them; and thus the country churches of Roman Britain would be sought in vain by excavators.  In the towns, however, stone or brick would assuredly be used, and to account for the paucity of ecclesiastical ruins three answers may be suggested.