Introduction.

version of the whole province, and the wholesale baptizings in the rivers Glen and Swale, which were con- Wilfrith of York, sequent on the baptism of Eadwine. Nevertheless, we are told that in his early boyhood he manifested a decided preference for the monastic life. His career till he became a Bishop was marked but by one event which is of importance in English Church History. At the synod of Streaneshalh Whitby, Wilfrith, then a priest of Bishop Ægelberht of Wessex, was the advocate of the Roman practice with regard to the celebration of Easter. His arguments prevailed, and in consequence the whole English Church adopted the Roman rule. He thus took a principal part in deciding the question whether the North English Church, which owed her hierarchy and existence mainly to that of Scotland, should retain the elasticity of usage which she had borrowed from the latter, or be rigidly subjected, like her neighbour the South English Church, to the rules which emanated from Rome.

After his consecration, we find Wilfrith’s influence all bearing in the opposite direction. He apparently was content that the North English Church should serve the Roman, but rebelled against the supremacy of the primate of Canterbury. His influence now was not so successful as before. It was sufficient to acquit himself personally in two appeals to synods at Rome; yet it was not sufficient to last beyond his own lifetime.

But, after all, what was chiefly admirable in Bishop Wilfrith is his unceasingly active devotion to the cause of the Gospel. He was Bishop of York, of Hexham, of York again, of Mercia, and of Hexham again; he served the see of Lindisfarne for two years; he converted Sussex and Wiht, not to speak of his preaching in Fresia Frisia; he went thrice to Rome, the last time in his seventieth year, upon matters which he must have thought vital to the welfare of the Church of England.

A striking contrast to the stormy career of Wilfrith is