Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/39

 the work of the Mission in Kent—the Roman Mission. Through this renewed life in Northumbria, Essex and London were re-converted under Cedd. Mercia was also converted in the year 653. Wessex also was made Christian through the North, through the marriage of King Kynegil's daughter. The mid-Angles also were made Christian chiefly through the work of four Celtic priests—Cedd, Adda, Betti and Diuma.

On the death of Honorius, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the year 654, Rochester was the only Bishop in England who had been connected with the Roman Mission.

We have now reached that point of time in the history of the English Church when nearly the whole of England had embraced the Christian Faith. Many stalwart men had lived and died, many saintly men indeed, to spread the Gospel teaching. Among them we should mention S. Aidan, Finan, Cedd, Colman, S. Cuthbert, and Chad. These are men who worked hard to give our ancestors the knowledge of the Gospel; and all these, you must not forget, belonged to the Celtic Church. We must not forget this fact, that it was the old Celtic priests who specially helped in reviving the Christian religion in England, when we hear it so frequently said that England was converted to the Faith by the Romanists. Rome only gradually imposed its own customs on our country, as it did on every other nation. She made it appear as if our Church in England were under obligation to her, and under her authority.

During the sixth and seventh centuries the power of the Papal Court continued to grow, and became aggressive. The Popes even then, desired to fill up the English Sees