is the day I have long desired, and the hour of our
deliverance is at hand. Be strong in the Lord: hope in Him, and He will
save your souls." The barbarians slew the holy man and the majority of
his company. A little while after, the Christians of the neighborhood
came in arms and recovered the body of St. Boniface. Near him was a
book, which was stained with blood, and seemed to have dropped from his
hands; it contained several works of the Fathers, and amongst others a
writing of St. Ambrose "on the Blessing of Death." The death of the
pious missionary was as powerful as his preaching in converting
Friesland. It was a mode of conquest worthy of the Christian faith, and
one of which the history of Christianity had already proved the
effectiveness.

St. Boniface did not confine himself to the evangelization of the pagans;
he labored ardently in the Christian Gallo-Frankish Church, to reform the
manners and ecclesiastical discipline, and to assure, whilst justifying,
the moral influence of the clergy by example as well as precept. The
Councils, which had almost fallen into desuetude in Gaul, became once
more frequent and active there; from 742 to 753 there may be counted
seven, presided over by St. Boniface, which exercised within the Church
a salutary action. King Pepin, recognizing the services which the
Archbishop of Mayence had rendered him, seconded his reformatory efforts
at one time by giving the support of his royal authority to the canons of
the Councils, held often simultaneously with and almost confounded with
the laic assemblies of the Franks, at another by doing justice to the
protests of the churches against the violence and spoliation to which
they were subjected. "There was an important point," says M. Fauriel,
"in respect of which the position of Charles Martel's sons turned out to
be pretty nearly the same as that of their father: it was touching the
necessity of assigning to warriors a portion of the ecclesiastical
revenues. But they, being more religious, perhaps, than Charles Martel,
or more impressed with the importance of humoring the priestly power,
were more vexed and more anxious about the necessity under which they
found themselves of continuing to despoil the churches and of persisting
in a system which was putting the finishing stroke to the ruin of all
ecclesiastical discipline. They were more eager to mitigate the evil and
to offer the Church compensation for their share in this e