understand, what crowds of eager students would gather about them, what
hosts of world-weary people would rest and listen! How many romantic
maidens and resolute youths would drink inspiration from them! But we
know a little of what was sinned and suffered, commenced and completed
there, in the North of our land, and though it is not a hundredth part
of what might be told, it is yet enough to fill us with thoughts of
God's care and goodness, and to stir us up to noble deeds.

No one can read and reflect on the history of any county without seeing
that places are almost entirely made famous by the people who have
lived upon them, and Northumberland has been enriched by some of the
best blood that ever flowed through mortal veins. That part with which
we have most to do is the group of islands lying off its coast, but
Lindisfarne and the Farne Islands are interesting, not so much because
of the wild and desolate grandeur of their rocks, as because two
persons have lived and wrought there. St. Cuthbert and Grace
Darling--two widely different persons indeed--the man, the dreamer and
the saint, and the simple strong-hearted maiden, living at long
distances from each other, but both doing the work possible to them
faithfully, will arise in all minds at the mention of the place. But
the Farne Isles belong to Northumbria, and its history is theirs also.
It will not therefore be out of place to make some reference, not only
to the rocky home in which the Darlings lived, but to the historic
scenes among which they worked.

First, the ancient Britons, with the Druidical temples, lived their
lives in Northumbria, making altars of rocks, and leaving their
barrows, or burial-mounds, to tell the story of how they too died and
passed away. Some ancient graves have been discovered, at little
Barrington, near Angerton, Kirkheaton, and other places. At this time,
the only teachers of the people were the Druids; and though students of
our day would not care to go to school to them, some of their lessons
at least would do no dishonour to these later times, for they taught
their scholars to worship the only gods they knew, to be brave and
courageous, and to do no evil. They offered human sacrifices, however;
and if they were brave, it cannot possibly be said that they were also
merciful. The women of the ancient Britons seem to have been better
treated than those of many uncivilised nations. Caesar misrepresented
them; but they