the Creator of all things. When Cadmon awoke, he remembered his dream-song, and he added more verses to it speaking of God's power and love in the making of the world. The next morning Cadmon went up to the religious house upon the cliff, and told the steward of his dream and of the song which he had sung; and the steward took him to Hilda, who made him repeat his verses to her and the good men and students there. They all thought that he had received a gift of sacred song from God, and they told him some other Bible stories, and bid him see if he could put them too into verse. Cadmon went home, and the next day he came back, having put these parts of the Bible also into excellent verse. Hilda now proposed to Cadmon that he should come and live in the religious house, where they would teach him more of the Bible history, and where he could spend his time undisturbed in making poetry and songs, which might teach the people God's idea of right, and win them to love and serve him. So Cadmon spent the rest of his life there, and he put into verse all those beautiful stories which we have known ever since we were little children—the story of Abraham's great faith in God when he was willing to offer up Isaac; of the Israelites passing down without fear into the depths of the Red Sea; and of God's great care over those who are steadfast to the right, keeping them safe in the midst of the burning, fiery furnace, so that, as Cædmon sang : "Therein they unhurt Walked as in shining of the summer sun When day breaks, and the winds disperse the dew." At last the time drew near when Cædmon must sing his songs with all the just and true before the throne of God in heaven. He was ailing for about a fortnight before his death, but still able to be about. On the evening of the night in which he died, he asked some one to make up a bed for him in the room in which those persons were placed who appeared to be dying; and here he went to rest. After receiving the Holy Communion, he said, "I am in charity, my children, with all the servants of God." He then asked if the hour was near when the praises of God were sung in the night, wishing, perhaps, to join in them once more. He was told it was not far off. "It is well," he replied; "let us await that hour." Then laying his head upon the pillow, he fell into a slumber, and in silence his spirit passed to God. Cadmon was probably our first English poet; and it is well to remember how English literature begins with a note of praise to God, recognising our relation to Him in love and duty; and we shall find that this strain, begun by Cadmon, runs through our literature down to the present time, and that it rises highest in our greatest writers. This is how Cadmon starts the solemn music : 66 'Most right it is that we praise with our words, Glorious King of all the hosts of men ; He speeds the strong, and He is the head of all About the time that Cædmon was writing his poems, a little child was born near Wearmouth, in Durham, who was afterwards called Bede. He was only a little fellow of seven when he was taken into a religious house that had just been founded at Wearmouth. In those times, orphans, or any children whose fathers and mothers wished for them a better training and life than their own, were received into the religious houses in England, to be taught and prepared for God's service, much as heathen children are now taken into our mission stations in foreign lands. It is not known whether Bede had lost his father and mother, or whether being a bright, little boy, they were willing to give him up to be educated at the religious house, instead of keeping him in ignorance at home. When Bede was ten, he was moved from the house at Wearmouth to another, which had just been opened at Jarrow, on the banks of the Tyne; and here he spent the rest of his life for fifty-two years. During the earlier part of this time, Bede was busy at work learning all he could; and learning in those days was about as different from what it is now as we should find feeding to be, supposing we had to plough the land, sow the corn, cut it, grind it, and make it into bread ourselves, before we could put a piece into our mouths. There were very few school-books, and very few persons who knew how to teach; but Bede did not grumble at or linger over the difficulties in his way. It was the duty set before him, and in giving himself faithfully to it, he found, as he tells us, "great delight in learning." Besides his school work, Bede had to do various things in the house, for there were no servants, and every inmate took his part in cooking, or cleaning, or in working in the fields and garden. He also sang in the choir, and as he grew older had the direction of the daily singing in the church. When Bede was nineteen, he received deacon's orders, and at thirty he was ordained a priest. The chief work of his life now became the teaching of the children and students in the schools. The difficulties he had met with had not daunted him as a scholar, but they had given him perhaps a kindly sympathy with those who were now stumbling along the same rugged road, and he made it his business to compile from the ponderous volumes, through which he had had to labour, just the clear, concise information which the young scholar wanted, so as to save him much time and toil; and this with patient industry he put together into handy school text-books. Bede found that his pupils were curious and eager to know something about the world around them, and he compiled for them a book containing all that was then known about nature and its laws. This was the first English school-book of Natural Science, and it remained for centuries the chief book of that kind used in English schools. The greatest of Bede's works was his "Ecclesiastical History of the English People," which was in fact the first history of England. It tells the story of the early times, when the "Englisc folc" first settled in this island, of the landing of Augustine and his missionaries, of the spread of Christianity in the various kingdoms into which England was then divided, of different events which had come under his own observation, or which he had learnt from friends in other parts of the country; and he tells everything with the clearness and simplicity of a man who believes he is speaking the truth in every line. The careful, conscientious way in which he did all his work is shown in a remark he made just before his death, about a book he was compiling "I will not have my pupils read a falsehood, nor labour therein without profit after my death." Bede wrote as many as forty-five different books, all of them intended for teaching and usefulness. At the end of his "Ecclesiastical History" he gives the names of these, and then says :— "And now, I beseech Thee, good Jesus, that to whom Thou hast graciously granted sweetly to partake of the words of Thy wisdom and knowledge, Thou wilt also vouchsafe, that he may sometime or other come to Thee, the Fountain of all wisdom, and always appear before Thy face, who livest and reignest, world without end. Amen." The fame of Bede as an earnest, successful teacher, and a man of great learning, spread far and wide through the land; and in the later years of his life, there were as many as six hundred students of different ages in the schools of the religious house at Jarrow. All who came within Bede's influence must have felt the pure beauty of his simple, faithful life, as well as the power of his teaching; and many of his pupils were bound to him by ties as strong and tender as those uniting children to their father. But the time came when the dear master was to be taken from them; and through all the long thousand years and more that have passed since then, there has come down to us a letter, written just after Bede's death by one of his pupils, named Cuthbert, to his schoolfellow and friend, Cuthwin, who was not then at Jarrow, giving him an account of the last days of their much-loved teacher. This letter was written in the year 735; it begins : "To his fellow-reader, Cuthwin, beloved in Christ, Cuthbert, his schoolfellow; health for ever in the Lord." He then goes on to thank Cuthwin for letters, the chief satisfaction of which had been the assurance that he was offering prayers "for our father and master Bede, whom God loved," and he proposes, for the love of him, to relate in what manner he departed this world-"understanding that you also desire and ask the same. He was much troubled with shortness of breath, yet without pain, before the day of our Lord's Resurrection, that is about a fortnight, and thus he afterwards passed his life, cheerful and rejoicing, giving thanks to Almighty God every day and night, nay, every hour, till the day of our Lord's Ascension, and daily gave lessons to us, his disciples, and whatever remained of the day he spent in singing Psalms. He also passed the night awake in joy and thanksgiving, unless a short sleep prevented it. I declare with truth, that I have never seen with my eyes, nor heard with my ears, any man so earnest ir. giving thanks to the living God. O, truly happy man! He chanted the sentence of St. Paul the Apostle, 'It is fearful |