nd less educated people there is a great deal of
superstition connected with them.

CHAPTER II.

THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND.

A.D. 604-734.

While the light of the Gospel was darkened by the Mahometan conquests in
some parts of the world where it had once shone brightly, it was
spreading widely among the nations which had got possession of western
Europe. In England, the successors of St. Augustine converted a large
part of the Anglo-Saxons by their preaching, and much was also done by
missionaries from the island of Iona, on the west of Scotland. There, as
we have seen,[63] an Irish abbot, named Columba, had settled with some
companions about the year 565, and from Iona their teaching had been
carried all over the northern part of Britain. These missionaries from
Iona to England found a home in the island of Lindisfarne, on the
Northumbrian coast, which was given up to them by Oswald, king of
Northumbria, and from them got the name of Holy Island. Oswald himself
had been converted while an exile in Scotland; and, as he had learnt the
language of the country there, he often helped the missionaries in their
labours by interpreting what they said into the language of his own
subjects who listened to them. The Scottish missionaries carried their
labours even as far south as the river Thames; and their modest and
humble ways gained the respect and love of the people so much that, as
we are told by the Venerable Bede, wherever one of them appeared, he was
joyfully received as the servant of God. Even those who met them on the
road used eagerly to ask their blessing, and, whenever one of them came
to any village, the inhabitants flocked to hear from him the message of
the Gospel.

[63] Part I., p. 139.

But these Scottish missionaries differed in some respects from the
clergy who were connected with St. Augustine; and after a time a great
meeting was held at Whitby, in Yorkshire, to settle the questions
between them and the Roman Church. We must not suppose that these
differences were of any real importance; for they were only about such
small matters as the reckoning of the day on which Easter should be
kept, and the way in which the hair of the clergy should be clipped or
shaven. But, although these were mere trifles, the two parties were each
so set on their own ways that no agreement could be come to; and the
end was, that the Scottish missionaries went back to their own country,
and did no more work for spread