Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/94

80 the early Saxon people and those of the same races from whom they sprang was not wanting is the story of the early missionary work of the Old English Christians. The Frlsians were pagans long after the conversion of those of their race who were descended from the early Frisian settlers in England. The Frankish monks had endeavoured in vain to convert them, and failed, perhaps through difficulties with their language. The Anglo-Saxon missionaries, being more allied in race, met with some success William of Malmesbury tells us how their final conversion was brought about. He says: ‘The ancient Saxons and all the Frisian nations were converted to the faith of Christ through the exertions of King Charles,’ but we know that in the conversions which followed the conquests of Charlemagne the sword was the chief instrument. It was by far different means that some hundred and fifty years earlier the band of Anglo-Saxon missionaries, of whom Wilfrid was the first, began their journeys into Germany, impelled by Christian zeal, and it can hardly be doubted by the sentiment also of common racial descent. They turned their energies to the conversion of their Frisian and Saxon cousins to the faith which the English people had themselves so lately adopted.

Wilfrid and Willibord, his pupil, Winirith or Boniface, Leofwine, the converter of the Saxons, Willehad of Northumbria, and the brothers Willibald and Wunibald, are but names to the political historian of the Continental nations from which the Anglo-Saxon race sprang. They stand out prominently, however, in the early ecclesiastical history of Northern Germany, where they are, even to the present day, as honoured as those of Augustine, Birinus, and Paulinus in England.

From such a country as ancient Frisia was, emigration, as the population increased, was a necessity. The story