nd priest of the same monastery, Cynemund, who still
lives, known to many in the neighbourhood for his years and the purity
of his life."

* * * * *

I hope that the memory of this story, which, thinking it myself
an extremely pretty one, I have given you, not only for a type of
sincerity and simplicity, but for an illustration of obedience, may
at all events quit you, for good and all, of the notion that the
believers and witnesses of miracle were poetical persons. Saying
no more on the head of that allegation, I proceed to the Dean's
second one, which I cannot but interpret as also intended to be
injurious,--that they were artless and childish ones; and that because
of this rudeness and puerility, their motives and opinions would not
be shared by any statesmen of the present day.

It is perfectly true that Edward the Confessor was himself in many
respects of really childish temperament; not therefore, perhaps, as I
before suggested to you, less venerable. But the age of which we are
examining the progress, was by no means represented or governed by
men of similar disposition. It was eminently productive of--it was
altogether governed, guided, and instructed by--men of the widest and
most brilliant faculties, whether constructive or speculative, that
the world till then had seen; men whose acts became the romance, whose
thoughts the wisdom, and whose arts the treasure, of a thousand years
of futurity.

I warned you at the close of last lecture against the too agreeable
vanity of supposing that the Evangelization of the world began at St.
Martin's, Canterbury. Again and again you will indeed find the stream
of the Gospel contracting itself into narrow channels, and appearing,
after long-concealed filtration, through veins of unmeasured rock,
with the bright resilience of a mountain spring. But you will find it
the only candid, and therefore the only wise, way of research, to look
in each era of Christendom for the minds of culminating power in all
its brotherhood of nations; and, careless of local impulse, momentary
zeal, picturesque incident, or vaunted miracle, to fasten your
attention upon the force of character in the men, whom, over each
newly-converted race, Heaven visibly sets for its shepherds and kings,
to bring forth judgment unto victory. Of these I will name to you, as
messengers of God and masters of men, five monks and five kings; in
whose arms during the range of swiftl