t England should lose her faith and fall back under the
rule of a mere heathen conqueror. After the "thoughtful Edwin,
mightiest of all the kings of the isle of Britain," as he has been
called (he was, by the way, the founder of Edinburgh), there arose
another champion of the new light in the person of Oswald, Edwin's
nephew. Oswald's history connects him with Columba the Irishman, and
"Apostle of Scotland," to whose splendid work the nation owed its first
real religious advance. About 563, when in his forty-second year, and
accompanied by twelve companions, Columba found a resting-place on the
little island of Hy or Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, whence he
set himself to the great work of his life--the conversion of the Pictish
tribes beyond the Grampians. At Iona Oswald had sheltered during the
home troubles, and many valuable lessons he must have learned for the
strenuous life that lay in front of him. Called to lead his countrymen
against their oppressors, Oswald literally fought his way to the throne.
On a rising ground, a few miles from Hexham, near the Roman Wall, he
gathered in 634 a small force, which pledged itself to become Christian
if it conquered in the engagement. Causing a cross of wood to be hastily
made, and digging a hole for it in the earth, he supported it with his
own hands while his men hedged up the soil around it. Then, like Bruce
at Bannockburn years afterwards, he bade his soldiers kneel with him and
entreat the true and living God to defend their cause, which he knew to
be just, from the fierce and boastful foe. This done they joined battle,
and attacked Cadwallon's far superior forces. The charge was
irresistible. The Welsh army fled down the slope towards the
Deniseburn,--a brook near Dilston which has been identified with the
Rowley Burn,--and Cadwallon himself, the hero of fourteen battles and
sixty skirmishes, was caught and slain. This was the battle of
Hefenfelt, or Heaven's Field, as after-times called it. Not only was the
last hero of the old British races utterly routed, but Oswald, King of
once more reunited Bernicia and Deira, proved himself to the Christian
cause all that Edwin had been, and more, a prince in the prime of life,
and fitted by his many good qualities to attract a general enthusiasm of
admiration, reverence, and love. Resolved to restore the national
Christianity, and to realize the ambitions of his exile life, he turned
naturally to Iona and to the teachers of