WE cannot tell what the preaching of Paullinus was like, but if he humbly asked God to show him how to teach His word to the heathen folk in the North country, we know that he did not ask in vain; and if God is the Teacher, the darkness which makes our eyes so blind to His love must fly away like the shadows of night at sun-rise, even as the Lord Jesus said when He spoke of Himself, "I am come a Light into the world, that whosoever believeth in Me should not abide in darkness.”
All that history tells us is that many of Edwin's people forsook the old gods, and hearkened to the teaching of Paullinus, and that all went well with the land until a mighty heathen king, who ruled over the middle part of England, joined with a Welsh king to make war upon Edwin, and slew him in battle. Then the conqueror tried to make the Northern folk heathens again, and some of them went back to their old gods, while many fled away to Kent with the queen and Paullinus.
Are you not glad to think that better days soon came for Northumberland? It was a stormy time, full of changes, and the next king of the North lands was Oswald, the young prince of whom you have read, who learned the gospel from the Iona missionaries when he was in banishment, and who was so anxious when he became king that his people should be taught, that he went about, with Aidan, putting his words, into English for them, so once more the fit of him who brought glad tidings were beautiful upon the mountains of our dear native land.
Although Baeda's history is very interesting, you must remember that his most important work was his last, that translation of St. John's gospel which he only just lived long enough to complete. This work did not die with him. Those who could read, and there were many, among his own scholars and elsewhere, read in their own tongue that gospel which tells us so especially of the love of God in the gift of His Son, and contains so much of the teaching of the Lord Jesus Himself, in His very words, as those of you who have lately been studying it know.
The way in which God has preserved His word and given it to us is an interesting subject at all times, but especially now when everyone is talking of the " Revised Translation," it is interesting to enquire a little about the old ones.
The translation of part of the Bible into the tongue of the English people, which came next to Baeda's work, is called the Durham Book, and was probably made in the reign of King Alfred. It contains the four gospels, but I am afraid you could hardly understand two words of it, so much has our language changed since that time. Here is a piece, however, for you to try how much you can read.
“Soth is secge eow, se the ne gaeth aet tham geate in to sceapa falde, ac styhth ells ofer, heis theof and sceatha.
"Se the in-gaeth aet tham geate heis sceapa hyrde, thaene se geat-weard laet in, and tha sceap gehyrath his stefne : and he nemth his a gene sceap be naman, and laet hig
After all, I think you will be able to make this out; but you see I have chosen a very easy verse or two of St. John's gospel, and I have not put in any of the old-fashioned letters which make the Durham Book rather hard reading now-a-days. The volume itself is very beautifully written—all by the hand, as you know all books were at that time—upon skins very carefully prepared, and is a monument of patient labour. The letters at the beginning of each gospel are painted with bright colours, and, strange to say, there are four portraits supposed to represent the four evangelists.
It is to our king Alfred that we own the first translation of the psalms. Before he was king, he had collected a great many in a little book which he always carried in his bosom that he might read it in intervals of rest. We are told by his friend Asser that once, while conversing with the king, he happened to quote a sentence from the Bible. Alfred, who greatly reverenced God's word, and was a man of prayer, at once took his little book from his bosom and asked Asser to write down what he had repeated. As, however, the book did not contain one blank page, the king bade that a clean sheet of parchment should be folded in the shape of a book, and there the words from the Bible were written. By degrees the book grew into a large volume, for, says his friend, “like a most productive bee he flew here and there, asking questions as he went, until he had eagerly and unceasingly collected many various flowers of divine scripture, with which he thickly stored the cells of his mind."
But Alfred was no miser; he felt that all that God had given him he must, as a good steward, dispense to his people; he was eager to turn the treasures of his "handbook," for so he called it, into Saxon, and it was from this book, in which we are told that the king, amid his many anxieties, found " no small consolation," that he began his translation of the psalms from Latin into the tongue spoken by his people.
The book itself has been lost, but from some parts of it which have been preserved we see that it contained not only passages of scripture but other writings. Here is an extract which seems to be a prayer of the king:
"Lord, Thou who hast wrought all things worthy and nothing unworthy; Thou who art the Father of that Son who has awakened and yet awakens us from the sleep of our sins, and warmeth us that we come to Thee!
“Thou who hast given us the power that we should not despond in any toil, nor in any inconvenience, as is no wonder, for Thou well rulest and makest us well serve Thee.
"Thou who hast well taught us that we may understand that that was strange to us and transitory which we looked on as our own—that is, worldly wealth ; and hast also taught us to understand that that is our own that we looked on as strange to us—that is the kingdom of heaven, which we before disregarded.
“Thou who always preparest eternal life for us, and preparest us also for eternal life, hear me, Lord, Thy servant! Thee alone I love above all things; Thee I seek; Thee I follow; Thee I am ready to serve. Under Thy government I wish to abide, for Thou alone reignest."
The more we know of King Alfred's life and reign, the more we see that he did, indeed, seek to be himself under the government of God, praying for His blessing and guidance in all his undertakings, and that God made his way prosperous, so that he will be always remembered as our great and good king.
I think you would like to read a story out of the king's book about a good man who, when he found that the ignorant country folk of the place where he lived, would not come to church that he might preach to them, thought of a plan for winning their attention. He took his stand at eventide upon a bridge which led from the town to the country, and there he sang so sweetly that the people stopped upon their way home from fair or market, and crowded the bridge, to listen to his song. Then, when numbers were assembled, he taught them the word of God, and they heard him gladly.
I am sure this story must have delighted the king as he wrote it down, for the thought lay heavy on his heart that his people were very ignorant, and that there were but few who could teach them: his wish was that every free-born child should "persevere in learning till he could read the English scriptures with fluency.”
The word for Christ in the English of Alfred's time is "Healer," and by this beautiful name he calls Him in his writings.
In the Saxon Chronicle, which is the earliest English history we have, we are told of three men who were found cast ashore upon the Cornish coast. They had come all the way from Scotland in a little boat, "wrought of three hides and a half," without oar or rudder. Taking with them a week's provisions, they had stolen away from their country by night, for they wished, for the love of God, to live as pilgrims somewhere-they cared not where.
Here we have another glimpse of the sad uncertainty in which men who had not God's word to guide them lived. In their ignorance these Scotch pilgrims thought to please God, and, perhaps, help to save their souls, by letting themselves drift in a little boat upon the rough seas which beat around our shores-so ready are our foolish hearts to believe that. God wants something from us, until we find that we can bring nothing to Him but our sins, and the sad story of our misery, and that He of His own free love and mercy gives us “Every gift that love could give.”
We can fancy, when these poor wanderers were brought, as the Chronicle says they were, to King Alfred, how kindly he must have treated them, but we do not know what became of them afterward. C. P.