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82 YORK.
but settle it at once as a thing to be utterly condemned,
incapable of defence or extenuation. Difficult
though it must always be to throw ourselves into
the position of those who lived in an age far remote
from our own, with different surroundings, different
habits of thought, different sources of information,
yet, if we seek to form fair and dispassionate views,
the endeavour must be made to do so. The points
in dispute between Wilfrid and Colman, and their
respective adherents, as they appear on the surface,
seem now very trivial. But the real question resolved
itself into this,— whether there was any central authority
which could moderate between two contending
parties, and give a final decision as to their conflicting
opinions or claims. The Columban Church, with all
its holiness, with all its self-denial, with all its missionary
zeal, had, in the proper sense of the word, no
organic unity. Camps and out-posts, so to speak,
were planted, as occasion seemed to require, in
different parts of the country, to do battle with
heathendom, and a noble battle did they fight. But
there was little cohesion amongst these forces, their
sphere of observation was narrow and contracted,
their plan of operations under no central government.
Wilfrid unquestionably saw these deficiencies. How
were they to be met ? He had been at Rome. He
had studied there ; he had witnessed the working of a
great and organized polity; he had seen the advantages
of wider culture, of greater range of studies, of
all the manifold and refining influences of music and
painting, and architectural science and skill. In
Rome he found all these things. To Rome the con-