sin is the original fountain from whence all those waters of bitterness
flow, and by laboring effectually to cut off this evil, convert its
punishment into its remedy and a source of benedictions. St. Prix of
Rouen to honored in the Roman and Gallican Martyrologies. Those who with
{462} Chatelain, &c. place his death on the 14th of April, suppose him
to have been murdered on Easter-day, but the day of our Lord's
Resurrection in this passage of our historian, means no more than
Sunday. See St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc. l. 5, c. 10, 15. Fleury,
l. 34, n. 52. Gallia Christiana Nova, t. 11, pp. 11 and 638. Mons.
Levesque de la Ravaliere in his Nouvelle Vie de S. Gregoire, Eveque de
Tours, published in the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et
Belles Lettres, An. 1760, t. 26, pp. 699, 60. F. Daniel, Hist. de
France, t. 1, p. 242.

ST. ETHELBERT, C.

FIRST CHRISTIAN KING AMONG THE ENGLISH.

HE was king of Kent, the fifth descendant from Hengist, who first
settled the English Saxons in Britain, in 448, and the foundation of
whose kingdom is dated in 445. Ethelbert married, in his father's
lifetime, Bertha, the only daughter of Charibert, king of Paris, and
cousin-german to Clotaire, king of Soissons, and Childebort, king of
Austrasia, whose two sons, Theodobert and Theodoric, or Thierry, reigned
after his death, the one in Austrasia, the other in Burgundy. Ethelbert
succeeded his father Ermenric, in 560. The kingdom of Kent having
enjoyed a continued peace for about a hundred years, was arrived at a
degree of power and riches which gave it a pre-eminence in the Saxon
heptarchy in Britain, and so great a superiority and influence over the
rest, that Ethelbert is said by Bede to have ruled as far as the Humber,
and Ethelbert is often styled king of the English. His queen Bertha was
a very zealous and pious Christian princess, and by the articles of her
marriage had free liberty to exercise her religion; for which purpose
she was attended by a venerable French prelate, named Luidhard, or
Lethard, bishop of Senlis. He officiated constantly in an old church
dedicated to St. Martin, lying a little out of the walls of Canterbury.
The exemplary life of this prelate, and his frequent discourses on
religion, disposed several Pagans about the court to embrace the faith.
The merit of the queen in the great work of her husband's conversion is
acknowledged by our historians, and she deserved by her piety and great
zeal to be co