Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/38

 King Edwin. This was a dreadful calamity for Northumbria. This blow undid the whole work of the Gospel in the North. Paulinus had to fly with the queen into Kent. James, the faithful deacon, did not accompany him; but he stayed behind to do the best he could to rally the Christian forces under King Oswald. Oswald had a great desire to see the Gospel restored again to his kingdom, but it is significant to notice that Paulinus was not asked to come back again to carry on his work. Neither did Oswald ask Kent to help him in his difficulties at all. He appealed, kindly notice, to the old Scotch, the old British Church. At that time the Gospel flourished in the island of Hy. Oswald had lived there in the early days, and knew something about the Celtic priests. He made an appeal, then, to his old friends, and in answer to this a man named Colman was sent to his kingdom. But he found the people so hard to deal with that he returned home in despair. At a meeting held to discuss the situation after he returned, someone suggested that Colman had been a failure because he had not learnt the Apostolic precept to feed babes with milk. This was the opinion of S. Aidan. He was at once recognized as a fit person to take Colman's place. He was a strong and a saintly man, and he took up the work which Paulinus first, and Colman afterwards, had failed to accomplish; and the greatest success attended it. Thus you see that the North of England was re-converted to the Faith, not by the work of the Roman Mission, not through the efforts of the Christians in Kent, but through the priests and Bishops of the old Celtic or British Church. It was through their Mission in the North that many other parts of England were in future years evangelized, and not through