Historical Tales, Vol. 4 | Page 4

priest leaped on his horse, and riding at
full speed towards the temple sacred to the heathen gods, he hurled the
warlike weapon furiously into its precincts.
The lookers-on, nobles and commons alike, beheld his act with awe, in
doubt if the deities of their old worship would not avenge with death
this insult to their fane. Yet all remained silent; no thunders rent the
skies; the desecrating priest sat his horse unharmed. When, then, he
bade them follow him to the neighboring stream, to be baptized in its
waters into the new faith, an eager multitude crowded upon his steps.

The spot where Edwin and his followers were baptized is thus
described by Camden, in his "Description of Great Britain," etc.: "In
the Roman times, not far from its bank upon the little river Foulness
(where Wighton, a small town, but well-stocked with husbandmen,
now stands), there seems to have formerly stood Delgovitia; as it is
probable both from the likeness and the signification of the name. For
the British word Delgwe (or rather Ddelw) signifies the statues or
images of the heathen gods; and in a little village not far off there stood
an idol-temple, which was in very great honor in the Saxon times, and,
from the heathen gods in it, was then called Godmundingham, and now,
in the same sense, Godmanham." It was into this temple that Coifi
flung his desecrating spear, and in this stream that Edwin the king
received Christian baptism.
But Christianity did not win England without a struggle. After the death
of Ethelbert and Edwin, paganism revived and fought hard for the
mastery. The Roman monks lost their energy, and were confined to the
vicinity of Canterbury. Conversion came again, but from the west
instead of the east, from Ireland instead of Rome.
Christianity had been received with enthusiasm in Erin's isle. Less than
half a century after the death of St. Patrick, the first missionary,
flourishing Christian schools existed at Darrow and Armagh, letters and
the arts were cultivated, and missionaries were leaving the shores of
Ireland to carry the faith elsewhere. From the famous monastery which
they founded at Iona, on the west coast of Scotland, came the new
impulse which gave Christianity its fixed footing in England, and
finally drove paganism from Britain's shores. Oswald, of Northumbria,
became the bulwark of the new faith; Penda, of Mercia, the sword of
heathendom; and a long struggle for religion and dominion ensued
between these warlike chiefs. Oswald was slain in battle; Penda led his
conquering host far into the Christian realm; but a new king, Oswi by
name, overthrew Penda and his army in a great defeat, and the worship
of the older gods in England was at an end. But a half-century of
struggle and bloodshed passed before the victory of Christ over Odin
was fully won.

KING ALFRED AND THE DANES.
In his royal villa at Chippenham, on the left bank of the gently-flowing
Avon, sat King Alfred, buried in his books. It was the evening of the
6th of January, in the year 878, a thousand years and more backward in
time. The first of English kings to whom a book had a meaning,--and
the last for centuries afterwards,--Alfred, the young monarch, had an
insatiable thirst for knowledge, a thirst then difficult to quell, for books
were almost as rare as gold-mines in that day. When a mere child, his
mother had brought to him and his brothers a handsomely illuminated
book, saying,--
"I will give this to that one of you four princes who first learns to read."
Alfred won the book; so far as we know, he alone sought to win it, for
the art of reading in those early times was confined to monks, and
disdained by princes. Ignorance lay like a dismal cloud over England,
ignorance as dense as the heart of the Dark Ages knew. In the whole
land the young prince was almost alone in his thirst for knowledge; and
when he made an effort to study Latin, in which language all worthy
literature was then written, we are told that there could not be found
throughout the length and breadth of the land a man competent to teach
him that sealed tongue. This, however, loses probability in view of the
fact that the monks were familiar with Latin and that Alfred succeeded
in acquiring a knowledge of that language.
When little more than a boy Alfred became king. There was left him
then little time for study, for the Danes, whose ships had long been
descending in annual raids on England's shores, gave the youthful
monarch an abundance of more active service. For years he fought
them, yet in his despite Guthrum, one of their ablest chiefs, sailed up
the Severn, seized upon