dawn broke on another
sleepless night, and again the old man called his scholars round him and
bade them write. "There is still a chapter wanting," said the scribe, as
the morning drew on, "and it is hard for thee to question thyself any
longer." "It is easily done," said Baeda; "take thy pen and write
quickly." Amid tears and farewells the day wore on to eventide. "There
is yet one sentence unwritten, dear master," said the boy. "Write it
quickly," bade the dying man. "It is finished now," said the little
scribe at last. "You speak truth," said the master; "all is finished
now." Placed upon the pavement, his head supported in his scholar's
arms, his face turned to the spot where he was wont to pray, Baeda
chaunted the solemn "Glory to God." As his voice reached the close of
his song, he passed quietly away.

J. R. GREEN.

[Note: _Baeda_. The father of literature and learning in England
(656-735 A.D.).]

* * * * *

THE DEATH OF ANSELM.

Anselm's life was drawing to its close. The re-enactment and
confirmation by the authority of the great Whitsuntide Assembly of the
canons of the Synod of London against clerical marriage, and a dispute
with two of the Northern bishops--his old friend Ralph Flambard, and the
archbishop-elect of York, who, apparently reckoning on Anselm's age and
bad health, was scheming to evade the odious obligation of acknowledging
the paramount claims of the see of Canterbury--were all that marked the
last year of his life. A little more than a year before his own death,
he had to bury his old and faithful friend--a friend first in the
cloister of Bee, and then in the troubled days of his English
primacy--the great builder, Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester. Anselm's last
days shall be told in the words of one who had the best right to record
the end of him whom he had loved so simply and so loyally--his attendant
Eadmer.

"During these events (of the last two years of his life) he wrote a
treatise 'Concerning the Agreement of Foreknowledge, Predestination, and
the Grace of God, with Free Will,' in which contrary to his wont, he
found difficulty in composition; for after his illness at Bury St.
Edmund's, as long as he was spared to this life, he was weaker than
before; so that, when he was moving from place to place, he was from
that time carried in a litter, instead of riding on horseback. He was
tried,