an Canterbury, sent there
to minister to the Christian queen. An excellent opening this for the
conversion of the king and people, an opening intentionally created by
those who made the marriage on the queen's side. But, however hopeful the
opening, the immediate result was disappointing. If more of missionary
help had been sent from Gaul, from whence this bishop came, the conversion
of the king and people might have come in the natural way, by an inflow of
Christianity from the neighbouring country. But such help, though
pressingly asked for, was not given; and as I read such signs as there
are, this year 594, of which we now inaugurate the thirteen-hundredth
anniversary, was the year in which it came home to those chiefly concerned
that the conversion was not to be effected by the means adopted. Beyond
some very limited area of Christianity, only the queen and some few of her
people, and the religious services maintained for them, the bishop's work
was to be barren. The limited work which he did was that for which
ostensibly he had come; but I think we are meant to understand that his
Christian ambition was larger than this, his Christian hope higher. I
shall make no apology for dwelling a little upon the circumstances of this
Christian work, immediately before the coming of Augustine. It may seem a
little discursive; but it forms, I think, a convenient introduction to our
general subject.

Who Bishop Luidhard was, is a difficult question. That he came from Gaul
is certain, but his name is clearly Teutonic; whence, perhaps, his
acceptability as a visitor to the English. He has been described as Bishop
of Soissons; but the lists of bishops there make no mention of him, nor do
the learned authors and compilers of _Gallia Christiana_. This assignment
of Luidhard to the bishopric of Soissons may perhaps be explained by an
interesting story.

The Bishop of Soissons, a full generation earlier than the time of which
we are speaking, was Bandaridus. He was charged before King Clotaire, that
one of the four sons of the first Clovis who succeeded to the kingdom
called "of Soissons," with many offences of many kinds; and he was
banished. He crossed over to England--for so Britain is described in the
old account--and there lived in a monastery for seven years, performing
the humble functions of a kitchen-gardener. Whether the story is
sufficiently historical to enable us to claim the continuance of Christian
monasteries of the B