Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/187

 Rh THE

BISHOP OF ARRAS.

CHAPTER I.

Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, had come down from heaven into this world, through the Virgin'^s womb, to seek the sheep that were lost, and, having gloriously achieved the work of his providence and of our redemption, had returned back to the seat of his Father's glory, he left behind him many lights in the persons of evangelic teachers, to dispel the darkness of this world; that as the stars adorn the face of heaven, and all draw their brilliancy from the sun, so also his holy teachers might shine upon this world, deriving their light from the Sun of immortality, and illustrating with the brightness and holy name of Christ, those also who were wandering in the blindness of ignorance, that their hunger which they had felt, even from the beginning of the world, might be satisfied with the feast of eternal life. Of the number of these was the holy priest Vedast, an excellent preacher, in the time of the brave king of the Franks, Clovis, who was led by God's grace into these parts for the salvation of many, that, by Divine Grace assisting him, he might turn back into the way of salvation, and that true freedom which is in Christ, a people deceived by the snares of the Devil, and the captive that was bound in the chains of sin. But that this might be done at a favourable time, according to the Apostle, who says,—