fect of this chequered
narrative, faithfully recording disasters mingled with triumphs, will be
to excite thankfulness in all religious minds, and hope in the breasts
of all patriots. For the history of our country during the period
concerned is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of
intellectual improvement.

Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness she
was destined to attain. Of the western provinces which obeyed the
Caesars, she was the last conquered, and the first flung away. Though
she had been subjugated by the Roman arms, she received only a faint
tincture of Roman arts and letters. No magnificent remains of Roman
porches and aqueducts are to be found in Britain, and the scanty and
superficial civilisation which the islanders acquired from their
southern masters was effaced by the calamities of the 5th century.

From the darkness that followed the ruin of the Western Empire Britain
emerges as England. The conversion of the Saxon colonists to
Christianity was the first of a long series of salutary revolutions. The
Church has many times been compared to the ark of which we read in the
Book of Genesis; but never was the resemblance more perfect than during
that evil time when she rode alone, amidst darkness and tempest, on the
deluge beneath which all the great works of ancient power and wisdom lay
entombed, bearing within her that feeble germ from which a second and
more glorious civilisation was to spring.

Even the spiritual supremacy of the Pope was, in the dark ages,
productive of far more good than evil. Its effect was to unite the
nations of Western Europe in one great commonwealth. Into this
federation our Saxon ancestors were now admitted. Learning followed in
the train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age
was assiduously studied in the Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. The
names of Bede and Alcuin were justly celebrated throughout Europe. Such
was the state of our country when, in the 9th century, began the last
great migration of the northern barbarians.

Large colonies of Danish adventurers established themselves in our
island, and for many years the struggle continued between the two fierce
Teutonic breeds, each being alternately paramount. At length the North
ceased to send forth fresh streams of piratical emigrants, and from that
time the mutual aversion of Danes and Saxons began to subside.
Intermarriage became frequent. The Dane