settled in Wales. Their
Celtic cousins had a passion for writing.

We find Gennadius of Marseilles testifying to the soundness of the
doctrine of Fastidius, and its worthiness of God. But who shall testify to
the soundness of Gennadius? He was a semi-Pelagian; and so it appears was
Fastidius, for whose soundness he vouches. Fastidius distinctly quotes
from Pelagius, though without mentioning him by name. He uses the phrase
which is the keynote of Pelagianism, man sinned "after the example of
Adam;" and he describes the manner in which saints should pray, in words
which cannot be independent of Pelagius's words on that subject.

Apart from their heretical tendency, the works or work of Fastidius may be
taken as containing excellent teaching. He naturally presses most the
practical side, the necessity of a good life. "Our Lord said," he shrewdly
reminds the reader, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments;
He did not say keep faith only. For if faith is all that is required, it
is too much to say that the commandments must be kept. Far be it from me
to suppose, that my Lord said too much on any point." One interesting
allusion to the state of the country in his time, the Christian
settlements here and there in the midst of a heathen population, it may be
the Romano-Briton among the unmixed Britons, occurs in a passage full of
practical teaching:--"It is the will of God that His people should be
holy, and free from all stain of unrighteousness; so righteous, so
merciful, so pure, so unspotted from the world, so single-hearted, that
the heathen should find in them no fault, but should say in wonder,
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom He hath
chosen for His own inheritance."

LECTURE III.

Early Christianity in other parts of these islands.--Ninian in the
south-west of Scotland.--Palladius and Patrick in Ireland.--Columba
in Scotland--Kentigern in Cumbria.--Wales.--Cornwall.--The fate of
the several Churches.--Special rites &c. of the British
Church.--General conclusion.

We are to consider this evening the early existence of Christianity in
other parts of these islands, in order that we may have some idea of the
actual extent to which Christianity prevailed in England, Wales, Scotland,
and Ireland, at the time when Augustine came to Kent.

The Italians appear to have blamed the British Church for its want of
missionary zeal. But that only appli