of the Saints. I have
quoted a passage about "Judith," which occurs in the summary of the
books of the Old Testament, written for a friend of his, one Sigeweard,
who had often asked him for English writings, which he had delayed
giving him until after he had, at Sigeweard's earnest request, come to
his house, and then Sigeweard had complained to him that he could not
get at his writings. This little incident reminds us how differently
from now people had to arrange about books and writings, and how much
more dependent they were on teaching through the ear and the eye.

I must give you a little specimen of AElfric's writing, a piece taken
from his beautiful homily on Holy Innocents' Day. It is in very simple,
direct language, and I think you will say it is not without a touch of
that lovely thing which it is easy to feel and hard to define--poetry. I
should like to have heard the sermon, and I hope you will feel somewhat
as I do!

"Christ despised not His young soldiers, although he was not present in
body at their slaughter. Blessed were they born that they might for His
sake suffer death. Happy is that their (tender) age, which was not yet
able to confess Christ, and was allowed to suffer for Christ. They were
the Saviour's witnesses, although as yet they knew Him not. They were
not ripe for the slaughter, but yet did they blessedly die to live!
Blessed was their birth, for they found eternal life on the threshold of
this present life. They were snatched from mother-breasts, but they were
straightway given into the keeping of angel-bosoms. The cruel persecutor
(Herod) could with no service benefit those little ones so greatly as he
benefited them with the hatred of his cruel persecution. They are called
martyrs' blossoms because they were as blossoms upspringing in the cold
of earth's unbelief, thus withered with the frost of persecution.
Blessed are the wombs that bare them, and the breasts which suckled such
as these. The mothers indeed suffered in the martyrdom of their
children; the sword which pierced the children's limbs pierced to the
mothers' hearts: and it must needs be that they be sharers of the
eternal reward, when they were companions in the suffering."

I will now tell you about a very different kind of sermon from
AElfric's--one of the sermons preached by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York,
who was not, like AElfric, leading a quiet life in an abbey, but throwing
himself into the struggles and needs of a mo