e 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 mer