e floor, as
being heathens. Methodius, who was at the king's table, spoke to the
duke, and said that he was sorry to see so great a prince obliged to
feed as if he were a swineherd. "What should I gain by becoming a
Christian?" he replied; and when Methodius told him that the change
would raise him above all kings and princes, he and his thirty followers
were baptized.

A story of the same kind is told as to the conversion of the
Carinthians, which was brought about in the end of the eighth century by
a missionary named Ingo, who asked Christian slaves to eat at his own
table, while he caused food to be set outside the door for their heathen
masters, as if they had been dogs. This led the Carinthian nobles to ask
questions; and in consequence of what they heard they were baptized, and
their example was followed by their people generally.

The second bishop of Prague, the chief city of Bohemia, Adalbert, is
famous as having gone on a mission to the heathens of Prussia, by whom
he was martyred on the shore of the Frische Haff in 997.

(4.) In the north of Germany, in Denmark, and in Sweden, Anskar, who had
been a monk at Corbey, on the Weser, laboured for thirty-nine years with
earnest devotion and with great success (A.D. 826-865). In addition to
preaching the Gospel of salvation, he did much in such charitable works
as the building of hospitals and the redemption of captives; and he
persuaded the chief men of the country north of the Elbe to give up
their trade in slaves, which had been a source of great profit to them,
but which Anskar taught them to regard as contrary to the Christian
religion. Anskar was made archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen, and is
styled "The Apostle of the North." But he had to suffer many dangers and
reverses in his endeavours to do good. At one time, when Hamburg was
burnt by the Northmen, he lost his church, his monastery, his library,
and other property; but he only said, with the patriarch Job, "The Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!"
Then he set to work again, without being discouraged by what had
befallen him, and he even made a friend of the heathen king who had led
the attack on Hamburg. Anskar died in the year 865. It is told that when
some of his friends were talking of miracles which he was supposed to
have done, he said, "If I were worthy in my Lord's sight, I would ask of
Him to grant me one miracle--that He would make me a good man!"

(5.)