Christians before the Teutons came, taught the settlers in the north; but it was long before the whole English people became Christians, and there was much good work to be done by those who had received the light of God's truth, in teaching others who were still ignorant of it. In order the better to carry on this work with system and lasting success, religious houses were established in different parts of the country, very like our mission stations in heathen lands. In these houses a number of good men and women dwelt; they gave themselves to the study of God's Word, and of everything which could help them to teach and raise the people living around them; and by their holy, loving lives they showed the people the power of Christianity, and how just and true are God's commands. These religious houses became thus the centres of light and spiritual life, and from them came forth most of the English literature of that time.

One of these houses had been built upon the East Cliff at Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast. It was presided over by a good woman, named Hilda, of whom it was said that"All who knew her called her mother, for her singular piety and grace; she was not only an example of good life to those that lived in her house, but gave occasion of salvation and amendment to many who lived at a distance, to whom the happy fame was brought of her virtue and industry."

Hilda and the other servants of God living in the religious house at Whitby gave their best energies to the work of teaching Christianity to the heathen in that district, and one of their first converts was a farmer named Cædmon. After he became a Christian, it happened one day that Cadmon was at a feast in the neighbourhood of Whitby; when after supper, according to the custom of the time, the harp was brought into the hall, and passed from guest to guest, every one being expected to sing in turn some song

in praise of the old Teutonic gods. Cædmon had listened to the wild songs extolling the deeds of Thor and Wodin, and he thought there is a far greater God than these, who has done better, nobler things than they, even our own Father and Maker-the Good. And he felt he could not be so untrue to Him, as to take the harp and sing praises to false gods, and yet he could not sing songs of the power and love of the true God, because he did not know any. So before the harp came to him, he got up from his seat and said he would go to the stable and look after the horses and oxen, which had brought the guests to the feast, and which were put up there for the night, and needed guarding from robbers and wolves.

When Cadmon found himself alone in the stable, where he was to keep watch all night, his thoughts would turn to the glory and the love of the true God. It was only lately that he had heard of how God made the heavens and the earth, and all things that are therein; and the thought was, no doubt, much more strongly present in his mind than in ours, who have been told ever since we first opened our eyes upon this world, that it was God's world, and that He made it and us. And joined with this thought there was the deep regret in his heart, that while he knew songs about the old false gods, he could not sing the high praise of the true Creator and Father. With these feelings in his mind Cadmon fell asleep, and as he slept his waking thoughts mixed themselves with his dreams, and he fancied that a person came to him and said, "Cædmon, sing some song to me;" then he said, "I cannot sing, and that is why I left the feast." But the other, who talked to him, replied, "Yet you shall sing." So Cædmon said, "What shall I sing?" "Sing of how God made all things," answered the person.

Then Cadmon began to sing, and the verses came to him in his dream, and he sang a song of praise to God,

the Creator of all things. When Cadmon awoke, he remembered his dream-song, and he added more verses to it speaking of God's power and love in the making of the world.

The next morning Cadmon went up to the religious house upon the cliff, and told the steward of his dream and of the song which he had sung; and the steward took him to Hilda, who made him repeat his verses to her and the good men and students there. They all thought that he had received a gift of sacred song from God, and they told him some other Bible stories, and bid him see if he could put them too into verse. Cadmon went home, and the next day he came back, having put these parts of the Bible also into excellent verse.

Hilda now proposed to Cædmon that he should come and live in the religious house, where they would teach him more of the Bible history, and where he could spend his time undisturbed in making poetry and songs, which might teach the people God's idea of right, and win them to love and serve him. So Cædmon spent the rest of his life there, and he put into verse all those beautiful stories which we have known ever since we were little children—the story of Abraham's great faith in God when he was willing to offer up Isaac; of the Israelites passing down without fear into the depths of the Red Sea; and of God's great care over those who are steadfast to the right, keeping them safe in the midst of the burning, fiery furnace, so that, as Cædmon sang :—

"Therein they unhurt

Walked as in shining of the summer sun

When day breaks, and the winds disperse the dew."

At last the time drew near when Cædmon must sing his songs with all the just and true before the throne of God in heaven. He was ailing for about a fortnight before his

death, but still able to be about. On the evening of the night in which he died, he asked some one to make up a bed for him in the room in which those persons were placed who appeared to be dying; and here he went to rest. After receiving the Holy Communion, he said, “I am in charity, my children, with all the servants of God." He then asked if the hour was near when the praises of God were sung in the night, wishing, perhaps, to join in them once more. He was told it was not far off. "It is well," he replied; "let us await that hour." Then laying his head upon the pillow, he fell into a slumber, and in silence his spirit passed to God.

Cadmon was probably our first English poet; and it is well to remember how English literature begins with a note of praise to God, recognising our relation to Him in love and duty; and we shall find that this strain, begun by Cadmon, runs through our literature down to the present time, and that it rises highest in our greatest writers. This is how Cadmon starts the solemn music :

"Most right it is that we praise with our words,
Love in our minds, the Warden of the Skies,

Glorious King of all the hosts of men ;

He speeds the strong, and He is the head of all
His high Creation, the Almighty Lord."

About the time that Cædmon was writing his poems, a little child was born near Wearmouth, in Durham, who was afterwards called Bede. He was only a little fellow of seven when he was taken into a religious house that had just been founded at Wearmouth. In those times, orphans, or any children whose fathers and mothers wished for them a better training and life than their own, were received into the religious houses in England, to be taught and prepared for God's service, much as heathen children are now taken into our mission stations in foreign lands. It is not known

whether Bede had lost his father and mother, or whether being a bright, little boy, they were willing to give him up to be educated at the religious house, instead of keeping him in ignorance at home. When Bede was ten, he was moved from the house at Wearmouth to another, which had just been opened at Jarrow, on the banks of the Tyne; and here he spent the rest of his life for fifty-two years.

During the earlier part of this time, Bede was busy at work learning all he could; and learning in those days was about as different from what it is now as we should find feeding to be, supposing we had to plough the land, sow the corn, cut it, grind it, and make it into bread ourselves, before we could put a piece into our mouths. There were very few school-books, and very few persons who knew how to teach; but Bede did not grumble at or linger over the difficulties in his way. It was the duty set before him, and in giving himself faithfully to it, he found, as he tells us, "great delight in learning." Besides his school work, Bede had to do various things in the house, for there were no servants, and every inmate took his part in cooking, or cleaning, or in working in the fields and garden. He also sang in the choir, and as he grew older had the direction of the daily singing in the church.

When Bede was nineteen, he received deacon's orders, and at thirty he was ordained a priest. The chief work of his life now became the teaching of the children and students in the schools. The difficulties he had met with had not daunted him as a scholar, but they had given him perhaps a kindly sympathy with those who were now stumbling along the same rugged road, and he made it his business to compile from the ponderous volumes, through which he had had to labour, just the clear, concise information which the young scholar wanted, so as to save him much time and toil; and this with patient industry he put together into handy school text-books.