The Saxon nobles at this time are said to have indulged in riotous feasting, drunkenness, and vice of every kind, to an almost incredible extent. There was neither truth nor manhood to stand up against the evil which equally pervaded all classes. The monasteries and nunneries, we are told, had become the haunts of the idle and the superstitious. Monks there were in abundance, but the valiant men were few, and the upright fewer still.

Doubtless there were exceptions, as in the case of S. Alphage and others, to the almost universal degeneracy, but more than one man of GOD had lifted up his voice to warn the people of the coming woes. Some hundred years had passed away since S. Augustine and his company had entered Canterbury in solemn procession, with the banner of the cross, chanting, "We beseech Thee, O LORD, in all Thy mercy, that Thy fury and anger may cease from this city and from Thy holy house; for we have sinned. Allelujah!" and still the anger of the LORD was not turned away, and His hand was stretched out still to punish a guilty land, for the Christian people had sinned more than the heathen, and grieved the SPIRIT of the LORD, the SPIRIT of peace, the Holy Dove, and well might they tremble when the dark standard of the Danish Raven, precursor of the coming sorrow, floated in their harbours.

But to return to the life of S. Alphage. We are told that while living in his humble cell at Bath, the piety which he sought in vain to hide from the eyes of others, shining only the brighter through the veil of his humility, many of the rich and noble, as well as of the poorer people, sought eagerly to him in his retirement for instruction in the way of godliness, and at length he was compelled by his obedience to those over him in the LORD, to take upon him the rule and direction of the great abbey of Bath, where, as in other houses of the kind, great irregularities had gradually crept in. The state of the monks was a sore grief of heart to the new abbot, but he was not one to sit down in despair. With his brave Saxon heart, and with the patient firmness and lowly meekness of a Christian, he set himself to the task, and his strength was even as his day. The most refractory of the monks were awed into obedience on the sudden death of one of their number by the visitation of Almighty GoD, and the rest were won over by the saintly example and fatherly exhortations of their youthful abbot. Often would he remind them that it had been better for them not to have known the way of godliness than, after they had known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them, and earnestly would he exhort them to make progress in the way of holiness, going on unto perfection.

He would say to them that the vows which they had taken upon them obliged them to a greater strictness than others, and that to wear the habit of a saint without the spirit was the acting of a daily lie, and an hypocrisy which might be hidden from the

eye of man, but could not escape the righteous judgment of Almighty GoD, Who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins, and Who requireth truth in the inward parts.

On the death of S. Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, in the year 984, S. Dunstan, who according to tradition was admonished on the subject by S. Andrew in a vision, called S. Alphage to the vacant see. Great was the trial to the Saint to quit the comparative seclusion of the Abbey where, with his now obedient and loving monks, he lived as a father in his family, serving the LORD without distraction; and the responsibility of a Bishop's office filled him with fear, but it was enough for him to know that duty called him to the post, and trusting in Him Whose grace is sufficient, he obeyed the command of his superior, and received from him episcopal consecration. Though only thirty years of age when called to this high office, the loving care and rule, and the holy wisdom as of a father in CHRIST distinguished the new Bishop. His time through the day was now necessarily more taken up than before, but at midnight he rose to pray and to give thanks unto the LORD; and while his moderation was known unto all men, and his abstinence, his prayerful vigils and self-denial unto Him Who seeth in secret, so abundant was his charity that through the twenty-two years of his episcopate at Winchester, no beggars were to be found in all his diocese. One can hardly help observing now self-denial and true charity are ever to be found as it were hand in hand. The laying down our lives for the brethren, links the two together after His perfect example Who loved us, and gave Himself for us. Yea, the rich may give of their abundance, and find it costs them nothing; but it is not so with those who long to follow as closely as they may in His steps, Who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich! It was David the king, the man after GOD's own heart, who refused to offer unto the LORD his GOD burnt-offerings of that which cost him nothing, and such should be the princely spirit of all the children of God.

The troubles in England at this time were daily increasing, and from year to year the poor defenceless people suffered much from the invasions of the Danes, yet of the latter many had settled down peaceably in the land, and intermarried with the English, having embraced Christianity. Ethelred, after his marriage with the Norman Princess Emma, thought at once to revenge and rid his people and himself of the Danes by the cruel and indiscriminate massacre of all the Danes throughout his dominions, on the 13th of November, the Festival of S. Brice, in the year 1002, when Gunhilda also, the sister of Sweyne the Danish king, herself a Christian and married to an English earl of Danish descent, was Darbarously murdered, after being made the witness of the execution of her husband and her child. The tidings of this treacherous and savage slaughter aroused to fury the fierce spirit of the Danes,

and they prepared to take a dreadful revenge, and it was not long before their fleet came down in new strength upon the English

coast.

It was at this time that S. Alphage, now in his fifty-second year, was called to the primacy on the death of S. Elfric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the year 1006, and with fear and trembling as before, he obeyed the call. On his return from Rome, whither he had been according to custom to receive the pall, he held a national council of the Bishops and Clergy at Oenham in 1009, in which thirtytwo canons were published for the reformation of errors and abuses, and the better establishment of godly discipline, and the Friday's fast, a then ancient law of the Church, was confirmed. It was indeed a time to fast and to sigh and cry for the abominations that were done in the land. The Danes swept through the country, carrying fire and sword with them, and leaving famine and desolation behind them. It was in vain that the weak King Ethelred taxed his miserable subjects to the utmost to satisfy their demands, which only increased the more. There were among his own nobles and advisers those who aided the invaders and ravagers of their native land, and assisted by Alfric and Edric, the traitorous Duke of Mercia, the Danes besieged Canterbury. The English nobles, fearing that the city could not long hold out against the enemy, besought the Archbishop to provide for his safety by flight. "Nay!" was his answer; "the hireling may abandon the flock when it is in danger, but so will not I!" and he remained at his post, caring as a faithful pastor for the flock committed to him. It might be that at times, for the spirit of a Christian patriot was strong within him, the noble Saxon could almost have longed to doff the Churchman's gown for the soldier's mail, and in the lack of a brave and skilful captain, himself to lead his countrymen to battle against the invader of their hearths; but such thoughts soon gave way to a higher and a holier zeal and to thankfulness for the priestly grace which enabled him, while he taught his people, to hear the rod and Him Who had appointed it for their correction, to pour in the oil and wine of heavenly consolation, to minister the food of everlasting life, and to strengthen by every means of blessing which the LORD had given in His house, the faith of His afflicted Church.

For the twenty days during which the siege lasted, he exerted himself to the utmost in animating the hearts of his people, and preparing them in the approaching trial to suffer to the utmost rather than renounce their faith. After having himself received the Holy Eucharist, he ministered the Holy Communion to his flock, and solemnly commended them to the protection of Almighty God. It was while he was thus engaged that the town was taken by assault, through the treachery of a deacon named Almeric, whose life on a former occasion had been preserved by the good Arch

bishop. The slaughter that ensued was dreadful; they plundered and fired the houses, sparing neither man, woman, nor child in their fury. Though the great mass of the Danes were pagans, some among them had heard of and embraced Christianity. Sweyne himself had been baptized though he had relapsed into idolatry, and his Saxon allies, Edric the false Duke of Mercia, and Alfric, who had betrayed the English navy which Ethelred had raised for the defence of the country, to the Danes, were also Christians, however unworthy of a name so sacred; and as by all of them the Archbishop was known and respected for his high and holy character, his faithful clergy hoped that, could they but detain him in the Cathedral until the fury of the onset was over, the life so precious to them all might yet be preserved; but as tidings reached him of the massacre without, he broke from those who would have held him back by force, and pressing through the troops of armed men, he made his way to the scene of slaughter, and there addressing the Danish leaders, he besought them to spare the people, and rather to turn their fury upon him, by whom their captives had been so often ransomed, fed, and clothed, and their own deeds of cruelty reproved. The Danes, enraged at his boldness, seized and used him most cruelly, and after making him the witness of the burning of his Cathedral, and the slaughter of his monks, of whom the tenth only were spared for slaves, they loaded him with irons and threw him into a filthy dungeon. A fatal sickness which almost immediately after broke out amongst them, and by which numbers were carried off, led them to fear that it might be a judgment from GOD for their usage of one whom even they acknowledged to be a just and holy man; and in their terror they brought him out of the dungeon, and loosing his chains, besought his prayers for the sick that they might be recovered, and the plague stayed.

When he had so prayed, the chiefs, acknowledging the benefit received by his means, deliberated about setting him at liberty; but as in the case of Pharaoh their hearts were hardened, and the greater part of them determined to extort a ransom, and in their covetousness they asked a sum so large that S. Alphage well knew it was far beyond the power of his impoverished flock to raise, though gladly would they in such a cause have toiled day and night to win it. The Danes then proposed a much smaller sum for his own ransom, provided he would agree to use his influence with the king to induce him to levy a fresh tribute for them upon his miserable subjects, already burdened beyond their power. "I do not possess the money you require," was the Archbishop's prompt reply; "and I will neither ask nor take myself money from any one, nor will I advise my king against his honour and the welfare of my country, which has already been laid waste, and the patrimony of the poor is not to be thus squandered away." Upon this bold reply he

was again bound and sent to prison, where he lay seven months, during which time the Danes, more covetous of money than thirsty for his blood, as we are told, frequently renewed their demands, but in vain. At length on Easter Sunday, while the Danish fleet lay at Greenwich, at which place the Danes were assembled at one of their riotous banquets, the captive was for the last time brought before them and threatened with torments and with death if he still refused to use his authority and influence to extort for them the sum required. "You press me in vain," said Alphage; “I am not the man to provide Christian flesh for Pagan teeth by robbing my poor countrymen to enrich their enemies."

Grasping their battle-axes, the Danes gathered round him and exclaimed with one voice, “Gold, Bishop! give us gold! gold!" The Archbishop stood in the midst of the infuriated mob unshaken from his purpose, and calmly looking round upon the idolaters, replied, "I have no other gold to offer than the gold of true wisdom, the knowledge of the Living GOD, which if ye refuse, it shall fare worse with you than with Sodom, on which the LORD rained fire and brimstone out of heaven;" and then he added, as in the spirit of prophecy, that their present power and hoped for rule in England should be but of short duration, for sad as was the condition of the Christian people in general, which had provoked the LORD to give them for a season into the power of the cruel pagans, there were no doubt those among them whose prayer went up day and night for their guilty and afflicted country, and it might have been revealed to the good Archbishop that the rod of the ungodly should not always rest upon the lap of the righteous.

The Danes enraged at the Archbishop's answer knocked him down with their battle-axes, and seizing whatever missiles came first to hand, they stoned him, while like S. Stephen he prayed that this their sin might be forgiven, and commended his soul to the LORD. Raising himself up once more in his dying agony, he was heard to pray in these words for the flock committed to him: "O good Shepherd! O Thou incomparable Shepherd, look with compassion upon the children of Thy Church, whom I in dying recommend to Thee." It is said that a Danish convert recently baptized by the Saint, distressed to see his lingering sufferings, put an end to them with a blow from his own battle-axe, a well meant act no doubt, but one of heathen kindness rather than of that Christian charity which endureth all things. It was thus that on the very spot where the Church which bears his name now stands, S. Alphage fell on sleep in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and the year of our LORD 1012. His festival is noted in the English calendar on the 19th of April, the day on which he suffered. I know not whether the Easter festivities of Greenwich have any connection with the feast day of the Saint, but alas! the merriment is of another kind than that which prompted the joyful salutation of the early Christians,