To this story of love and gentleness the wild heathen listened in wonder.  To help the weak, to love and forgive their enemies, was something unthought of by these fierce sea-rovers.  Yet they listened and believed.  Once again churches were built, priests came to live among the people, and the sound of Christian prayer and praise rose night and morning from castle and from hut.

For thirty years and more St. Columba, the passionate and tender, taught and labored.  Many monasteries were founded which became, as it were, the lighthouses of learning and religion.  There the monks and priests lived, and from them as centers they traveled out in all directions teaching the heathen.  And when at last St. Columba closed his tired eyes and folded his weary hands, there were many more to carry on his work.

Then, also, from Rome, as once before, the story of Christ was brought.  In 597, the year in which St. Columba died, St. Augustine landed with his forty followers.  They, too, in time reached Northumbria; so, side by side, Roman and Celt spoke the message of peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

The wild Saxon listened to this message, it is true.  He took Christianity for his religion, but it was rather as if he had put on an outer dress.  His new religion made little difference to his life.  He still loved fighting and war, and his songs were still all of war.  He worshiped Christ as he had worshiped Woden, and looked upon Him as a hero, only a little more powerful than the heroes of whom the minstrels sang.  It was difficult to teach the Saxons the Bible lessons which we know so well, for in those far-off days there were no Bibles.  There were indeed few books of any kind, and these few belonged to the monks and priests.  They were in Latin, and in some of them parts of the Bible had been translated into Latin.  But hardly any of the men and women of England could read or understand these books.  Indeed, few people could read at all, for it was still the listening time.  They learned the history of their country from the songs of the minstrels, and it was in this way, too, that they came to learn the Bible stories, for these stories were made into poetry.  And it was among the rugged hills of Northumbria, by the rocky shore where the sounding waves beat and beat all day long, that the first Christian songs in English were sung.  For here it was that Caedmon, the “Father of English Song,” lived and died.

At Whitby there was a monastery ruled over by the Abbess Hilda.  This was a post of great importance, for, as you know, the monasteries were the schools and libraries of the country, and they were the inns too, so all the true life of the land ebbed and flowed through the monasteries.  Here priest and soldier, student and minstrel, prince and beggar came and went.  Here in the great hall, when work was done and the evening meal over, were gathered all the monks and their guests.  Here, too, would gather the simple folk of the countryside, the fishermen and farmers, the lay brothers and helpers who shared the work of the monastery.  When the meal was done the minstrels sang, while proud and humble alike listened eagerly.  Or perhaps “it was agreed for the sake of mirth that all present should sing in their turn.”