and apart from them, a portion of each day was given to manual labour.

It is a picture of no light toil, no small self-sacrifice, which is here brought before us. The setting aside of all earthly hopes, the parting with all human ambition, the giving up the ties of kindred and of home, required no little self-denial from one to whom, born to wealth and a noble name, the path was open to that honour and power which worldly men hold dearest to them. It was, indeed, a high calling, but an arduous one, thus to choose poverty in place of luxury, thus to give himself to constant labour, and vigil, and fast, while the power was yet his own to enjoy the things of this life, and they whom he most loved were luring him to do so. But he had cast in his lot, he had shown himself ready to obey the will of GOD, and he was presently, as a reward, to be called to higher deeds, and higher sufferings. To him that hath shall more be given; and even so he that has suffered and laboured for CHRIST's sake, shall be called to go through more, that so he may obtain a higher crown of glory.

So passed away year after year, in his unobtrusive monastic life; unknown to the world, he was adding to the strength and the graces of his character. He was now full thirty years of age, and by the election of the Abbot and the brethren, was chosen to fill the sacred office of the priesthood, about the year 712. His desire was now to give himself yet more to prayer, to reading, and to exhortation. To preaching he gave especial attention, being very eloquent and learned, especially in the exposition of the Parables; and in

his sermons he sought neither to flatter the rich and powerful, nor to terrify the poor and weak, but accepting no man's person to declare fully the counsel of GOD.

About this time a Synod was held in the kingdom of the West Saxons, with the concurrence of King Ina. What the especial cause of its meeting was is not apparent; but it seems that under some pressing emergency the bishops of the churches summoned this synodical council. After their deliberations were ended, they resolved to send a deputation from themselves to Berctwald Archbishop of Canterbury, who in the year 693 had succeeded1 Archbishop Theodore in that see. And on the inquiry of King Ina, who was present, as to whom they proposed to send on this embassy, Winfred was brought forward by the Abbots Winberct of Nutscelle, Wintra of a house at a place called Disselburg, and Beerwald of Glastonbury. Within a few days he returned from his journey into Kent, bearing the Archbishop's answer, which ended the divisions that had arisen. But the mode in which he had acquitted himself of the charge was such, that frequently from this time he was invited to attend the Synods of the clergy, that they might avail themselves of the directions of one who showed so much of wisdom and of zeal.

But the time was now at hand that he should depart from his home at Nutscelle. Thirty years had passed in a hidden life, a time of preparation for more active labours in the cause of CHRIST, as the sojourn in the desert of the great Lawgiver of the people of Israel. 1 See Appendix II. 4.

He was to bid farewell to the calm quiet of the monastery, and brave perils by the sea and in the wilderness among a strange and unknown people. But he had counted the cost; he knew what he had chosen, and he looked not back, when he felt that he was bidden to go forwards.

CHAPTER II.

WINFRED'S FIRST JOURNEY INTO FRISIA, AND HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND.

A.D. 713-A.D. 718.

“I said, I will water my best garden, and will water abundantly my garden bed: and so my brook became a river, and my river became a sea.' ""

NEARLY four years appear to have passed away after his ordination to the priestly office, and Winfred still continued in his home at Nutscelle. The plans, which he had formed, were known to himself alone, and with constant prayer he was maturing his design, seeking to learn and to fulfil the will of GOD respecting him. At length he laid his whole mind before the Abbot Winberct. The announcement at first caused to him mingled sorrow and astonishment; and he refused for the present to accede to his request that he might be permitted to leave Nutscelle for a foreign land, in some hope that longer consideration might induce him to lay aside his purpose. But he had already shown. that he was not one likely to shrink from any work or any office, only because it involved greater trial and more of self-sacrifice and self-denial: and the more that his mind dwelt on the miserable condition of nations which belonged to the same race with his own, living in the most utter darkness at so short a distance

from his own shores, the more he felt urged to betake himself to a field wherein, though ready for the harvest, the labourers were few or none. After a while however Winberct himself withdrew his refusal, and there was now no farther hindrance to his departure.

It was in the year 716 that amid the tears of the brethren and their prayers to GOD for him, he departed from the home of so many years, where he had endeared himself to all by the gentleness of his character, while his firmness ever secured him their respect, and where he had served GOD in peaceful quietness and seclusion. It must have been strange to one, whose days had passed in the same unvarying round of holy duties within the walls of his monastery, where his mind, however active and realising to itself the things going on in the world without, must in some degree have been influenced by the quiet tenor of his life, and must also, in its measure, have come to be content with it and to love it,-thus to be thrown on the stormy sea of human life in an age when more than ordinarily wars and commotions were on all sides raging, and no one could count on the continuance of peace longer than from day to day. He was this time attended by only two or three companions who journeyed with him to London, then known as Lundenwic: and from thence, having established his right of returning,1 he made an agreement with the captain of a vessel, in which he embarked. After a safe and prosperous

6

1 Transacto postliminio,'-the process by which any one going to a foreign country, claimed for himself the rights of a subject and citizen of the land which he was leaving; so that on his return he was reinstated at once into his former condition.