ated at the same time of the year. Nothing
could have been more prudent than these regulations: they were, indeed,
formed from a perfect understanding of human nature.

Whilst the inferior people were thus insensibly led into a better order,
the example and countenance of the great completed the work. For the
Saxon kings and ruling men embraced religion with so signal, and in
their rank so unusual a zeal, that in many instances they even
sacrificed to its advancement the prime objects of their ambition.
Wulfhere, king of the West Saxons, bestowed the Isle of Wight on the
king of Sussex, to persuade him to embrace Christianity.[41] This zeal
operated in the same manner in favor of their instructors. The greatest
kings and conquerors frequently resigned their crowns and shut
themselves up in monasteries. When kings became monks, a high lustre was
reflected upon the monastic state, and great credit accrued to the power
of their doctrine, which was able to produce such extraordinary effects
upon persons over whom religion has commonly the slightest influence.

The zeal of the missionaries was also much assisted by their superiority
in the arts of civil life. At their first preaching in Sussex, that
country was reduced to the greatest distress from a drought, which had
continued for three years. The barbarous inhabitants, destitute of any
means to alleviate the famine, in an epidemic transport of despair
frequently united forty and fifty in a body, and, joining their hands,
precipitated themselves from the cliffs, and were either drowned or
dashed to pieces on the rocks. Though a maritime people, they knew not
how to fish; and this ignorance probably arose from a remnant of
Druidical superstition, which had forbidden the use of that sort of
diet. In this calamity, Bishop Wilfrid, their first preacher, collecting
nets, at the head of his attendants, plunged into the sea; and having
opened this great resource of food, he reconciled the desperate people
to life, and their minds to the spiritual care of those who had shown
themselves so attentive to their temporal preservation.[42]

The same regard to the welfare of the people appeared in all their
actions. The Christian kings sometimes made donations to the Church of
lands conquered from their heathen enemies. The clergy immediately
baptized and manumitted their new vassals. Thus they endeared to all
sorts of men doctrines and teachers which could mitigate the rigorous
law of