embraced the truth. Coifi, the chief priest of the Northumbrians, was the first to strike a decisive blow against paganism. He mounted a war-horse, spear in hand, girded with a sword, and rode to the temple of his idol; and, to the great astonishment of the people, hurled his spear at the temple walls, so that it fixed there. His followers then set fire to the building, and broke down the fences: and thus did Coifi publicly declare his abandonment of idolatry; and Christianity became established in Northumbria. It is true that the mere adoption of a purer faith does not prove that any of these men became Christians in heart; that is known only to Him who reads the heart; every soldier who enlists in the army of his sovereign may not love his king, and willingly obey him; but it is a great step gained when men are baptized into the Church of Christ, and call themselves by His holy name. Remember what St. John says: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols," and bear in mind also, dear children, that although we do not now bow down to gods of wood and stone, yet every thing is an idol which occupies our affections to the exclusion of our God and Father.

Edwin was baptized at York, A.D. 627, in a small wooden church; and that little building was the

humble commencement of what is now York Minster. He maintained perfect peace in his dominions until the invasion of Penda, king of Mercia, who defeated and slew this good sovereign. So watchful was Edwin over his people, and so strict in administering justice, that it was commonly said, a woman or a child with a purse of gold might travel in perfect safety from one end of his dominions to the other. Edwin was killed on the 12th of October, 633, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the eighteenth of his reign.

There were many more Saxon kings, of whom I should like to tell you some anecdotes; and especially of the good king Oswald, who reigned in Northumbria after Edwin's death. But this part of my history is becoming already too long, and I must pass them over without notice. You will be much pleased to read some account of them when you are older.

The kings of the Heptarchy quarrelled so much, and encroached so continually on each other's dominions, that at length it was agreed among them to live all under one king, while they were themselves henceforth called earls.

Egbert, king of Wessex, thus became the first sovereign of all England, in the year 827, and reigned

D

prosperously till 836. Towards the end of his reign the Danes began to invade England; and in the course of the next two-those of Ethelwolf, his son, and Ethelred, his grandson-nearly overran the whole kingdom. Ethelred was slain by them, and succeeded by his brother, Alfred the Great, in 871.

In the next chapter you will read the history of this good and wise king, and some account of the ferocious Danes, who worked so much mischief to our country.

CHAPTER III.

ALFRED, AND THE SEA-KINGS.

THE Danes were natives, not only of Denmark, but also of the coasts of Norway and Sweden. Like the Saxons when they first came to England, they were principally pirates, that is, men who lived by plunder on sea and on the coasts. They were pagans, and their religion was of the wildest character, and more ferocious in its rites, if possible, than that of the Druids, to which it bore some resemblance. It was the custom among these people, when any of their kings died, if he left more than one son, to choose one to succeed him, and to send the rest with some followers to sea in ships, to support themselves as they could by robbery and outrage of every description. These royal pirates were called sea-kings, a name dreaded by the inhabitants of England for nearly two centuries. Their standard was a raven, as that of the Romans had been an eagle; and as the steps of these merciless invaders were everywhere marked by murder, fire, plunder, and famine, the Saxons in time felt quite

a superstitious dread of this raven: possibly this is why it came to be considered as a "bird of ill omen," as it still is by ignorant persons of our own times. Even the wives of these terrible sea-kings seem to have been more like fierce demons, than the gentle, pious friends and companions the Almighty intended them to be; for they reproached with cowardice, and treated with contempt, that husband or brother who returned to them, if he could not tell them, not only of warriors slain in battle, but of towns and hamlets pillaged and burnt, and old men, women, and children murdered in cold blood, and with the utmost cruelty: so fierce and relentless becomes the character of those who put themselves under the dominion of Satan, by the worship of false gods. How can they "bring forth the fruit of the Spirit," which is "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, and temperance ?" (Gal. v. 22, 23.)

The sea-king, Ragnor Lodbrog, one of their greatest heroes, was shipwrecked on the coast of Northumberland, when that province was governed by two kings, Osbert and Ella. This latter monarch ungenerously caused him to be put to a death of lingering torture; and as the pagans, unlike the believers of the Gospel, look upon revenge as a duty, it is easy