Part 2 (1/2)

There is a lovely account of St Bede's last days handed down to us in a letter written by his pupil Cuthbert, to another of his pupils, Cuthwin.

Cuthwin had written, telling Cuthbert how he was diligently saying Ma.s.ses, and praying for their ”father and master, Bede, whom G.o.d loved,”

and Cuthbert is glad to answer his fellow-student's enquiries as to the departure of that ”dear father and master.”

His death-illness began ”a fortnight before the day of Our Lord's Resurrection,” and lasted till Holy Thursday. All the time he was full of joy and thanksgiving. Cuthbert says he has never seen any man ”so earnest in giving thanks to the living G.o.d.”

He made a little poem in English about the absolute importance of everybody considering, before his departure, what good or ill he has done, and how his soul is to be judged after death. ”He also sang antiphons,” says Cuthbert, ”according to our custom and use.” Cuthbert gives one of them, which is the lovely antiphon to the ”Magnificat” at second Vespers on Ascension Day.

His work went on during his illness. He was making a translation of part of St John's Gospel into English, ”for the benefit of the Church,” and was working at ”Some collections out of the 'Book of Notes' of Bishop Isodorus, saying, 'I will not have my pupils read a falsehood, nor labour therein without profit after my death.'” As the time went on his difficulty of breathing increased, and last symptoms began to appear; but he dictated cheerfully, anxious to do all that he could. On the Wednesday he ordered them to write with all speed what he had begun; and then ”we walked till the third hour with the relics of saints, according to the custom of that day.”

Then one of them said, ”Most dear Master, there is still one chapter wanting: do you think it troublesome to be asked any more questions?” He answered, ”It is no trouble. Take your pen, and make ready, and write fast.”

After this he distributed little gifts to the priests, and spoke to all, asking that Ma.s.ses and prayers might be said for him. His desire was, like St Paul's, to die and be with Christ: Christ Whom he had so loved, and at Whose feet he had laid all his gifts and all his learning.

”One sentence more,” said the boy, was yet to be written. The Master bad him write quickly. ”The sentence is now written,” said the boy. And the dear Saint knew that the end was come, and asked them to receive his head into their hands. And there sitting, facing the holy place where he had been used to pray, he sang his last song of praise, ”Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,” and ”when he named the Holy Ghost he breathed his last and so departed to the Heavenly Kingdom.”

St Bede was buried at Jarrow, but his relics were afterwards taken to Durham by a priest named Elfrid, and laid by St Cuthbert's side. In the twelfth century a glorious shrine was built over these relics by the Bishop of Durham, Hugh Pudsey: a shrine that, like many another, was destroyed in the sixteenth century uprising of the king of the country against the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER V

King Alfred, first layman to be a great power in literature; man of action; of thought; of endurance. Freedom first great possession; afterwards learning and culture. Alfred a loyal Son of the Church.

Founder of English prose. Earliest literature of a nation in verse; why. Influence of Rome on Alfred.

”Let us praise the men of renown,” says Holy Scripture (Ecclesiasticus, 44), ”and our fathers in their generations.... Such as have borne rule in their dominions, men of great power and endued with their wisdom ...

ruling over the present people, and by the strength of wisdom instructing the people in most holy words.”

We have to think now of a man of renown who bore rule in his dominions; a man of great power, and endued with wisdom; who by strength and wisdom instructed his people in most holy words. We have hitherto spoken of work done in the dedicated life of religion: to-day we direct our attention to the work of a great layman; the first English layman whom we know to have been a great power in literature; less as a ”maker,”

poet or proseman, than as an opener out to ”makers” of precious store; a helper and encourager; a fellow-student; a learner and a teacher of whom it could be said, as Chaucer says of his Clerk of Oxford, ”gladly would he learn and gladly teach.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: STATUE OF KING ALFRED, BY H. THORNEYCROFT, R.A. [_Page 48_]

It would not, I think, be possible for English people to over-estimate the value of the gift G.o.d gave them in KING AELFRED. That is really the right way to spell his name, but as to most people it looks unfamiliar, we will adopt the more usual spelling and write of him as Alfred.

We think of him in various aspects: first as the strong, brave man who did so much toward making n.o.ble history for time to come, by his own action, guided by his piety and devotion. His earliest work was to fight for the gaining of freedom and unity for his people, and this work went over many years. When there was an interval of peace, and when a more settled peace had been won, he worked hard to gain for them the freedom of the mind which can never exist where ignorance is reigning. Freedom is the first great possession; afterwards we seek for learning and culture. People who may be called away at any moment to fight for life or liberty cannot do much in the way of quiet study; and while the Danes were not yet finally repulsed or bound by treaty, the great work of Alfred in civilizing England had to remain in suspense.

We love to think that Alfred's wars were not to greaten himself, but to set his country free. Then, as later on, if I may quote what I have elsewhere said, the English

Had fought for their G.o.d-given birthright, their country to have and to hold, And not for the l.u.s.t of conquest, and not for the hunger of gold.

There is another aspect in which we may look at this great King; we think of him not only as a doer but as a sufferer; and not only as an endurer of disappointment, a bearer of toil, difficulty, trouble, but as one who bore in his body a ”white martyrdom” of great pain, perhaps even anguish; and this for some twenty years.

Alfred was always a loyal son of the Church. His father, aethelwulf, sent him to Rome when he was quite a little boy, and Pope Leo IV was G.o.dfather to him at his Confirmation, and, on hearing the report of aethelwulf's death, consecrated him as king, as he had been asked to do.

But aethelwulf did not die for a little time after, and took Alfred for a second visit to Rome. Each of Alfred's three brothers reigned a short time before he became King of Wess.e.x in 871. In that same year he fought no fewer than nine battles against the Danes, besides making sundry raids upon them. It is well to be a good fighting man where need is, and it is well to use the qualities that go to the making up of the good fighting man to meet the difficulties that beset the path of duty and the way of progress. Courage, strength, generosity, perseverance, these are needed for all work alike in peace and war.

Alfred was familiar in his youth with English songs, and most probably knew the old Norse sagas; but he had to learn Latin in his later life.