thus.

In 596, Austin, the monk, Melitus, Justus, Paulinus, and Russinian,
laboured in England, and in their way were very successful. Paulinus,
who appears to have been one of the best of them, had great success in
Northumberland; Birinnius preached to the West Saxons, and Felix to
the East Angles. In 589, Amandus Gallus laboured in Ghent, Chelenus in
Artois, and Gallus and Columbanus in Suabia. In 648, Egidius Gallus in
Flanders, and the two Evaldi, in Westphalia. In 684, Willifred, in the
Isle of Wight. In 688, Chilianus, in upper Franconia. In 698,
Boniface, or Winifred, among the Thuringians, near Erford, in Saxony,
and Willibroad in West-Friesland. Charlemagne conquered Hungary in the
year 800, and obliged the inhabitants to profess Christianity, when
Modestus likewise preached to the Venedi, at the source of the Save
and Drave. In 833, Ansgarius preached in Denmark, Gaudibert in Sweden,
and about 861, Methodius and Cyril, in Bohemia.

About the year 500, the Scythians over-run Bulgaria, and Christianity
was extirpated; but about 870 they were re-converted. Poland began to
be brought over about the same time, and afterwards, about 960 or 990,
the work was further extended amongst the Poles and Prussians. The
work was begun in Norway in 960, and in Muscovy in 989, the Swedes
propagated Christianity in Finland, in 1168, Lithuania became
Christian in 1386, and Samogitia in 1439. The Spaniards forced popery
upon the inhabitants of South-America, and the Portuguese in Asia.
The Jesuits were sent into China in 1552. Xavier, whom they call the
apostle of the Indians, laboured in the East-Indies and Japan, from
1541 to 1552, and several millions of Capauchins were sent to Africa
in the seventeenth century. But blind zeal, gross superstition, and
infamous cruelties, so marked the appearances of religion all this
time, that the professors of Christianity needed conversion, as much
as the heathen world.

A few pious people had fled from the general corruption, and lived
obscurely in the vallies of Piedmont and Savoy, who were like the seed
of the church. Some of them were now and then necessitated to travel
into other parts, where they faithfully testified against the
corruptions of the times. About 1369 Wickliffe began to preach the
faith in England, and his preaching and writings were the means of the
conversion of great numbers, many of whom became excellent preachers;
and a work was begun which afterwards spread in E