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Not last among them was Coifi, chief priest of the idol-worship, whose ardent soul was stirred by the words of the old thane. "None of your people, King Edwin, have worshipped the gods more busily than I," he said, "yet there are many who have been more favored and are more fortunate. Were these gods good for anything they would help their worshippers."

And when they were all gathered Coifi, the chief priest, spoke. "'O King, he said, 'consider what this is which is now preached to us; for I verily declare to you, that the religion which we have hitherto professed has, as far as I can learn, no virtue in it.

They closed the movement towards the sunset which Jute and Saxon began; they are the last, the youngest, and in politics the most richly gifted; yet in other departments of human activity not more richly gifted than their kindred who produced Cynewulf and Caedmon, Aidan and Bede, Coifi and Dunstan.

Then he called aloud and said, 'Who will be the first to throw down the altar of these false gods and destroy their temple. 'I will be the first, O king, shouted Coifi the priest. 'Give me a horse and weapons, and I will overthrow the temple of the false gods. Follow me, O thanes, and let us see if the gods can defend their own altars.

And when he inquired of the high priest who should first profane the altars and temples of their idols with the enclosures that were about them, Coifi answered, 'I; for who can more properly than myself destroy those things which I worshiped through ignorance, for an example to all others through the wisdom which has been given me by the true God?

Yet all remained silent; no thunders rent the skies; the desecrating priest sat his horse unharmed. When, then, he bade them follow him to the neighboring stream, to be baptized in its waters into the new faith, an eager multitude crowded upon his steps. It was into this temple that Coifi flung his desecrating spear, and in this stream that Edwin the king received Christian baptism.

If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed." Others of the King's wise men and counselors spoke, and they all spoke to the same end. Coifi then said that he would hear yet more of what Paulinus had to tell. So Paulinus rose from his place and told the people more of the story of Christ.

"None of your people, Eadwine, have worshipped the gods more busily than I," said Coifi the priest, "yet there are many more favoured and more fortunate. Were these gods good for anything they would help their worshippers." Then leaping on horseback, he hurled his spear into the sacred temple at Godmanham, and with the rest of the Witan embraced the religion of the king.

The roll of English names in the Acta Sanctorum is the living witness of the sincerity, the intensity with which the same men who fought to the death for Woden at the Winwaed, or speculated with Coifi on the eternal mystery, accepted the faith which Rome taught, the ideal from Galilee transmuted by Roman imagination, Roman statesmanship.

Then, snatching a sword, the high priest rushed from the hall and sprang upon the king's war-horse. The king and his wise men followed; and on their way they were joined by a number of people who left their work or the cattle they were tending, and followed, shouting as they ran, 'Coifi the high priest is mad! Soon they arrived at the temple.