rade or
manufacture, military exercises, war, and the preparation for war, was
their employment, hunting their pleasure. They dwelt in cottages of
wicker-work plastered with clay and thatched with rushes, where they sat
with their families, their officers and domestics, round a fire made in
the middle of the house. In this manner their greatest princes lived
amidst the ruins of Roman magnificence. But the introduction of
Christianity, which, under whatever form, always confers such
inestimable benefits on mankind, soon made a sensible change in these
rude and fierce manners.

It is by no means impossible, that, for an end so worthy, Providence on
some occasions might directly have interposed. The books which contain
the history of this time and change are little else than a narrative of
miracles,--frequently, however, with such apparent marks of weakness or
design that they afford little encouragement to insist on them. They
were then received with a blind credulity: they have been since rejected
with as undistinguishing a disregard. But as it is not in my design nor
inclination, nor indeed in my power, either to establish or refute these
stories, it is sufficient to observe, that the reality or opinion of
such miracles was the principal cause of the early acceptance and rapid
progress of Christianity in this island. Other causes undoubtedly
concurred; and it will be more to our purpose to consider some of the
human and politic ways by which religion was advanced in this nation,
and those more particularly by which the monastic institution, then
interwoven with Christianity, and making an equal progress with it,
attained to so high a pitch, of property and power, so as, in a time
extremely short, to form a kind of order, and that not the least
considerable, in the state.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Leges Inae, 32, De Cambrico Homine Agrum possidente.--Id. 54

[28] "Veteri usus augurio," says Henry of Huntingdon, p. 321.

[29] Bede, Hist. Eccl. Lib. II. c 13.

[30] Deos gentiles, et solem vel lunam, ignem vel fluvium, torrentem vel
saxa, vel alicujus generis arborum ligna.--L. Cnut. 5.--Superstitiosus
ille conventus, qui Frithgear dicitur, circa lapidem, arborem,
fontem.--Leg. Presb. Northumb.

[31] Spelman's Glossary, Tit. eod.

[32] The night-mare.

[33] L. Inae, 26.

[34] Oslacus ... promissa caesarie heros.--Chron. Saxon. 123.

[35] L. AElfred. 31. L. Cnut. apud Brompt. 27.

[36] Eadgarus nobilibus torquium lar