English Church History Author:Charlotte Mary Yonge Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: were very learned in the Scriptures. Some even went as far as France and Switzerland as missionaries, but this was not till after the holy and peaceful death of ... more »St. Columba, which took place in 597, before the altar of his Church, where he had desired to be laid. 14. These Scottish, Irish, and ancient British clergy used to keep Easter Day on the first full moon after the 21 st of March, without waiting for Sunday. Their services were, as said before, somewhat like those of the Ephesian Church, and they had also a peculiar way of making the tonsure. This was a circle shaven on the top of the head in remembrance of our Blessed Lord's crown of thorns. It was the mark of all clergy. CHAPTER III. OUR FIRST ARCHBISHOP. I. EVIL times had come on Britain. The Roman power had fallen, and the Saxons, or English, coming over from the Continent, overran the country, and killed all the Britons except those whom they kept as slaves. Their gods, Woden, Thor, and Frey, were worshipped all over the southern and eastern parts of the island, and Christianity seemed to be swept away except in Scotland, Cumberland, Wales, and Cornwall. 2. In these places the old race still were free, and their Churches continued, but the Welsh, as the western Britons began to be called, hated the conquerors far too much to wish to do anything for their conversion. It was from a more distant land that the first missionaries came to the English. 3. Every one knows how the good priest, Gregory, was struck with the fair faces of the English children in the slave market at Rome, and hearing that they were Angles, said they would be angels if they were Christians. He was asked what their land was and was told it was Deira, deer land. " From the ire of God may they be saved !" he said; and when he heard that ...« less