Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

38 ST. CHAD.
son, Peada, was courting the daughter of Oswinr
successor to Oswald. The princess resisted his ad-
vances because of his paganism, and his passion led
him to study the Christian religion. He procured
missionaries from Northumbria, and was baptised
by St. Finan. Penda himself never received
Christianity, though he openly expressed his contempt
for those who, having done so, continued to
live as pagans. St. Chad " was the principal apostle
of Mercia, and his little church of St. Mary the
nucleus of the future cathedral and see of Lich-
field.
The South Saxons were the last member of the
heptarchy to be converted. They gloried in their
idols, and laughed to scorn those whom they called
apostates. required no fewer than three
factors to bring them into the Church. These were
the example of their king, Ethelwald, who had re-
ceived baptism in Mercia; an exiled bishop no
other than St. Wilfrid; and a famine, during which
he reached their souls through their bodies. These
events took place in the year 681. When once
begun, I their evangelisation was speedily accomplished.
Ethel wald made over to Wilfrid the
promontory of Selsey, where he founded a monastery
and see, which was afterwards removed to Chi-
chester.
By the end of the seventh century the Saxons with
their heathen temples were converted to Christianity,
and they themselves as a people were about to carry