have sent forty* missionaries to this island for that purpose; their first convert was Ethelbert, king of Kent, whose wife Bertha was a Gallic princess and of the Christian persuasion, and was by her husband allowed to exercise her worship at the church of St. Martin, in the suburbs of Canterbury, which had probably been built by the Roman Christians of this island. Numbers of the subjects of Ethelbert followed the example of their sovereign, whose conversion much facilitated the views and exertions of the Christian preachers, and made way for the more general diffusion of their faith through the kingdoms of the heptarchy. *The chief of these missionaries was Augustine, who fixed his residence at Canterbury, and, having been dignified by Gregory with the title of archbishop and primate of the English nation, repaired an old Christian church of the Romans, and established it as his cathedral, giving to it the name of Christ church. By the influence of Ethelbert, he endeavoured to extort from the British church of Wales an acknowledgement of the pope's supremacy, but without success. THE END. |