Kent fut seul exclusivement conquis et conservé par les moines romains, dont les premières tentatives, chez les Est-Saxons et les Northumbriens, se terminèrent par un échec. En Wessex et en Est-Anglie les Saxons à l'ouest et les Angles à l'est furent convertis par l'action combinée de missionnaires continentaux et de moines celtiques. Quant aux deux royaumes Northumbriens' (Dëira and Bernicia), 'à l'Essex et à la Mercie, comprenant à eux seuls plus de deux tiers du territoire occupé par les conquérants germains, ces quatre pays durent leur conversion définitive exclusivement à

   l'invasion pacifique des moines celtiques, qui n'avaient pas seulement rivalisé de zèle avec les moines romains, mais qui, une fois les premiers obstacles surmontés, avaient montré bien plus de persévérance et obtenu bien plus de succès.'

    [20]

   The only effort made at that early period to introduce Christianity into the kingdom of the South-Saxons was that of an Irish monk, Dicul, who founded a small monastery at Bosham. It did not however prove successful.

   There is something profoundly touching in the religious ties which subsisted between England and Ireland during the seventh century, when compared with the troubled relations of those two countries during many a later age. If the memory of benefits received produces a kindly feeling on the part of the recipient, that of benefits conferred should exert the same influence on the heart of the bestower. To remember the past, however disastrous or convulsed, is a nation's instinct, and its duty no less, since a tribute justly due is thus paid to great actions and to great sufferings in times gone by; nor among the wise and the generous can the

   discharge of that patriotic duty ever engender an enmity against the living: but there is a special satisfaction in turning to those recollections with which no human infirmity can connect any feeling save that of good will; and it is scarcely possible to recall them in this instance without a hope that the sacred bonds which united those two countries at that remote period may be a pledge for reciprocated benefits in the ages yet before us. For both countries that early time was a time of wonderful spiritual greatness. In noble rivalry with Ireland England also sent her missionaries to far lands; and a child of Wessex, St. Boniface, brought the Faith to Germany, by which it was eventually diffused over Scandinavia, thus, by anticipation, bestowing the highest of all gifts on that terrible race the Northmen, in later centuries the 

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