d for
this we have to go back to the very beginning, to the first simple
building, whatever it was, in which the first bishop, Mellitus, began
his ministry. He founded the church in 604, and he had troubled times.
The sons of his patron, King Sebert, relapsed into paganism, indeed
they had never forsaken it, though so long as their father lived they
had abstained from heathen rites. One day, entering the church, they
saw the bishop celebrating the Sacrament, and said, "Give us some of
that white bread which you gave our father." Mellitus replied that
they could not receive it before they were baptized; whereupon they
furiously exclaimed that he should not stay among them. In terror he
fled abroad, as did Justus from Rochester, and as Laurence would have
done from Canterbury, had he not received a Divine warning. Kent soon
returned to the faith which it had abandoned; but Essex for a while
remained heathen, and when Mellitus wished to return they refused him,
and he succeeded Laurence at Canterbury. Other bishops ministered to
the Christians as well as they could; but the authority of the See and
the services of the cathedral were restored by Erkenwald, one of the
noblest of English prelates, son of Offa, King of East Anglia. He
founded the two great monasteries of Chertsey and Barking, ruled the
first himself, and set his sister Ethelburga over the other. In 675 he
was taken from his abbey and consecrated fourth Bishop of London by
Archbishop Theodore, and held the See until 693. He was a man, by
universal consent, of saintly life and vast energy. He left his mark
by strengthening the city wall and building the gate, which is called
after him Bishopsgate. Close by is the church which bears the name of
his sister, St. Ethelburga. He converted King Sebba to the faith; but
it was probably because of his beneficent deeds to the Londoners
that he was second only to Becket in the popular estimate, all over
southern England. There were pilgrimages from the country around to
his shrine in the cathedral, special services on his day, and special
hymns. In fact, as in the case of St. Edward, there were two days
dedicated to him, that of his death, April 30, and that of his
translation, November 14, and these days were classed in London among
the high festivals. His costly shrine was at the back of the screen
behind the high altar. The inscription upon it, besides enumerating
the good deeds we have named, said that he added largely