came forth to convert and enlighten the still barbarous regions of the continent."
This statement is broadly true; yet the correction it needs is a very important one. England,—under her first Alfred of Northumberland, and under Ina of Wessex, is indeed during these centuries the most learned, thoughtful, and progressive of European states. But she is not a missionary power. The missionaries are always to her, not from her:—for the very reason that she is learning so eagerly, she does not take to preaching. Ina founds his Saxon school at Rome not to teach Rome, nor convert the Pope, but to drink at the source of knowledge, and to receive laws from direct and unquestioned authority. The missionary power was wholly Scotch and Irish, and that power was wholly one of zeal and faith, not of learning. I will ask you, in the course of my next lecture, to regard it attentively; to-day, I must rapidly draw to the conclusions I would leave with you.
It is more and more wonderful to me as I think of it, that no effect whatever was produced on the Saxon, nor on any other healthy race of the North, either by the luxury of Rome, or by her art, whether constructive or imitative. The Saxon builds no aqueducts—designs no roads, rounds no theatres in imitation of her,—envies none of her vile pleasures,—admires, so far as I can judge, none of her far-carried realistic art. I suppose that it needs intelligence of a more advanced
