ves upon him.

Lord Macaulay has well summed up the relative positions of Church and
State in that age in the following words: "It is true that the Church
had been deeply corrupted by superstition, yet she retained enough of
the sublime theology and benevolent morality of her early days to
elevate many intellects, and to purify many hearts. That the sacerdotal
order should encroach on the functions of the chief magistrate, would in
our time be a great evil. But that which in an age of good government is
an evil, may in an age of grossly bad government be a blessing. It is
better that men should be governed by priest craft than by brute
violence; by such a prelate as Dunstan, than by such a warrior as Penda."

The Church was indeed the salt of the earth, even if the salt had
somewhat lost its savour; it was the only power which could step in
between the tyrant and his victim, which could teach the irresponsible
great--irresponsible to man--their responsibility to the great and
awful Being whose creatures they were. And again, it was then the only
home of civilisation and learning. It has been well said that for the
learning of this age to vilify the monks and monasteries of the medieval
period, is for the oak to revile the acorn from which it sprang.

The overwhelming realisation of these facts, the determination to set up
the dominion of truth and justice which they held to be identical with
that of the Church, as that was identical with the kingdom of God,
supplies the key to the lives and characters of such men as Ambrose,
Cyril, Dunstan, and Becket. They each came in collision with the civil
power; but Ambrose against Justina or even Theodosius, Cyril against
Orestes, Dunstan against Edwy, Becket against Henry Plantagenet--each
represented, in a greater or less degree, the cause of religion, nay of
humanity, against its worst foes, tyranny or moral corruption.

Yet not one of these great men was without his faults; this is only to
say he was human; but more may be admitted--personal motives would mix
themselves with nobler emotions. Self would assert her fatal claims, and
great mistakes were sometimes made by those who would have forfeited
their lives rather than have committed them, had they known what they
were doing. Yet, on the whole, their cause was that of God and man, and
they fought nobly. Shall we asperse their memories because they "had
this treasure in earthen vessels"?

The tale itself is intended to