A very considerable amount of new life and energy was infused into the Church of England by the mission of St. Augustine. Though the native Bishops and Clergy could not bring themselves to look cordially on those { 144} whose religious zeal was not always tempered with justice or courtesy towards their predecessors in the field of their missionary labours, still both foreigners and natives worked for the same cause, each in their own way, and a new evangelization of the freshly-heathenized population ensued[1]. [Sidenote: Amalgamation of English and Roman successions.] By degrees the two lines of Bishops became blended in one succession, which has continued unbroken until the present day.
The Church of England, thus strengthened and quickened, soon began to give abundant proofs of its vitality by sending out missionaries to convert the heathen in other lands. A large part of Germany and the Netherlands owes its Christianity to English Bishops and Clergy, such as Winfrith or Boniface, Willebrord, and a host of other less well-known or altogether forgotten names. The eighth century was especially distinguished by these missionary labours abroad, whilst, at home, were to be found such good and learned men as the Venerable Bede (A.D. 672 or '3-A.D. 735), an early translator of the Holy Scriptures, and his friend Egbert (A.D. about 678-A.D. 776), Archbishop of York, and founder of a famous school in that city, where the illustrious Alcuin (about A.D. 723-A.D. 804) was a scholar.
[Sidenote: Invasion, and conversion of the Danes.]
In A.D. 787, the Church of England began to suffer severely from the ravages of the heathen Danes or Northmen; but, by the wisdom and valour of the good King Alfred (A.D. 871-A.D. 901), { 145} they were for a while subdued, and numbers of them settled as peaceable colonists in England, where they gradually embraced Christianity.
Alfred was very zealous in his endeavours to repair the spiritual and intellectual losses which the Church of England had undergone during the contest with the Danes, whose ravages had almost entirely swept away all native scholarship. The king was especially eager to secure a literature in the vernacular for his subjects, and himself translated into "simple English" parts of the Holy Bible, and other religious books. In these labours he was assisted by a small body of learned men, including the two Aelfrics, Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and Wulfstan, supposed to have been Bishop of Worcester. The conversion of the Danes who had first settled in England to Christianity prepared the way for the evangelizing of later colonists; and when, through the crimes and weakness of the later Anglo-Saxon princes, the country fell altogether into the hands of Danish invaders, Canute the Great (A.D. 1016-A.D. 1033) not only embraced Christianity himself, but secured for his native country the services of English missionaries. [Sidenote: Evangelization of Scandinavia.] In fact, at this time Scandinavia seems to have been the chief mission-field of the English Church.