york00orns

20 YORK.
could give. His two sons by his first consort, Osfrid
and Eadfrid, received instruction from the saintly
bishop, and were admitted as members of the Church
of Christ. Not a few of the chief men of Northumbria
followed the example of their sovereign. York
was assigned as the place of his episcopal chair.
The labours of Paulinus extended far and wide.
His voice was heard in the wilds of Glendale, at the
foot of Cheviot, where for thirty-six days he was
incessantly occupied in teaching and baptizing the
inhabitants of the distant province of Bernicia. In
Deira, where the king chiefly dwelt, it was the same.
Crowds gathered round him on the banks of the
Swale, and in its waters, as in a second Jordan, they
were immersed in the All Holy Name ; for, as Bede
says, in the infancy of that new-formed church, there
were neither oratories nor baptisteries. The wild
moorland hills, or the stretch of green pasture, where
the thronging multitudes could gather round him,
sufficed for the one, and the streams w hich glided by
were an apt and fitting emblem of the spiritual purification
which in a more settled time was typified by
the other. A\ e read at this time of the erection of one
basilica only, with the exception, of course, of that
at York. It was built at the royal vill of Campodunum,
which may fairly be identified with the
modern Doncaster.
For six years were the missionary labours of
Paulinus carried on. When we read of Edwin's conversion
being followed by that of many of the chief
men of the kingdom, we are apt to think that some
worldly motives might perchance mingle with their