Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

SPIRIT
OF
Offa. The same twenty articles, imposed by the
Papal legates, were laid before each. Offa took
advantage of the opportunity to sever himself from
the spiritual jurisdiction of Canterbury. Pope
Adrian, led by his representations, appointed a
metropolitan for Mercia, fixing his see at .Lich field,
but this privilege ceased on the death of Offa in 803.1
It is a simple thing to give the facts, dry or stirring
as they may be, which are only the outlines of history.
As we could not judge of a landscape, however
beautiful, without its colouring, so we must let - the
bright sunshine illumine the field of the past, and
make its dry bones live. If the land of Cuthbert and
Chad, Aldhelm and Erconwald, Ethelreda and Guth-
lac lived, for a time at least, in that purity of heart
which sees God, let its supernatural brightness be
taken into account. " As I have said, Bede seemed to
live in a different world to the nineteenth century,
but the atmosphere which he describes is that of the
Church at all times. Now, as then, she has her holy
pastors, who cure the spiritual and physical infirmities
of their flock, her religious living only to God,
her nuns beginning already the angelic life of contemplation.
Yet some who are only slightly versed
in the secrets of holiness may think that Bede laid
on his colouring with too lavish a hand, and this
would be true if miracles were to cease with the
Apostles and not rather to constitute an ever-present
element in the oranism of the Church.
1 Hefole, Concil/'ii Gt hi vol. iii. p. 590