DEATH—AND AFTER?

Who does not remember the story of the Christian missionary in Britain, sitting one evening in the vast hall of a Saxon king, surrounded by his thanesIn Anglo-Saxon England, a thane was a member of the aristocratic class, typically a landholder who owed military service to the king., having come thither to preach the gospel of his Master; and as he spoke of life and death and immortality, a bird flew in through an unglazed window, circled the hall in its flight, and flew out once more into the darkness of the night. This famous allegory is recorded by the historian Bede in his eighth-century work, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, describing the conversion of King Edwin of Northumbria in 627 AD. The Christian priest bade the king see in the flight of the bird within the hall the transitory life of man, and claimed for his faith that it showed the soul, in passing from the hall of life, winging its way not into the darkness of night, but into the sunlit radiance of a more glorious world.

Out of the darkness, through the open window of Birth, the life of a man comes to the earth; it dwells for a while before our eyes; into the darkness, through the open window of Death, it vanishes out of our sight. And man has questioned ever of Religion, Whence comes it? Whither goes it? and the answers have varied with the faiths. To-day, many a hundred year since PaulinusSaint Paulinus of York (died 644 AD) was the Roman missionary who successfully converted King Edwin. talked with EdwinKing Edwin (reigned 616–633 AD) was a powerful ruler in Northern England whose conversion was a pivotal moment in the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons., there are more people in ChristendomA term historically used to refer to the collective body of Christian people and the nations where Christianity is the established or dominant religion. who question whether