It was something like this with England, where Bertha, another Frank
princess, worked upon her husband, Ethelbert, King of Kent, to listen to
Augustin, whom Pope Gregory the Great had sent to preach the Word to the
Saxons, recollecting how he had once been struck by the angel faces of
the little Angle children, whom he had found waiting to be sold for
slaves in the marketplace. From Kent, the sound of the Gospel spread out
throughout England; and before one hundred years had passed, all the
Saxons and Angles were hearty Christians, and sent out the missionary,
St. Boniface, who first converted the Teutons in Germany. So, though
it would have seemed that the great rush of heathen savages must have
stifled the Christian faith, it came working up through them, till at
last it moulded their whole state and guided their laws; but this was
long in coming to pass, and for many centuries they were very savage and
fierce.
St. Gregory the Great was one of the very best of the Popes, very
self-denying, and earnestly pious, and doing his utmost to train the
Romans in self-discipline, and to soften the Teutons. He put together
a book of seven services, to be used by devout people in the course of
each day; and he arranged the chants which are still called by his name,
though both they and the services are much older.
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