United States or Honduras ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Oswin's own leaning seems at first to have been towards the former, but when he heard of the great pretensions of the Roman saint he was staggered. "St. Peter, you say, holds the keys of heaven and hell?" he inquired thoughtfully, "have they also been given then to St. Columba?" It was owned with some reluctance that the Irish saint had been less favoured. "Then I give my verdict for St.
However dimly such thoughts may have presented themselves to Oswin's mind, it was the instinct of a statesman that led him to set aside the love and gratitude of his youth, and to secure the religious oneness of England in the Synod of Whitby."
But even while Cædmon was singing the glories of Northumbria and of the Irish Church were passing away. The revival of Mercia was as rapid as its fall. Only a few years after Penda's defeat the Mercians threw off Oswin's yoke and set Wulfhere, a son of Penda, on their throne. They were aided in their revolt, no doubt, by a religious strife which was now rending the Northumbrian realm.
To repulse Rome was to condemn England to isolation. But grave as such considerations were, they were of little weight beside the influence which Oswin's decision had on the very unity of the English race. The issue of the Synod not only gave England a share in the religious unity of Western Christendom; it gave her a religious unity at home.
Word Of The Day