life. The results of his monastic seclusion furnish a bright page even
in these dark ages. "Such was the authority of his writings, that,
though only a humble monk in the most remote, barbarous, and recently
converted of the Saxon principalities, he attained (what was even then)
the singular honour of being the most celebrated writer of Christendom
for more centuries than one."[5] His great work is entitled, an
"Ecclesiastical History," detailing ecclesiastical with civil events;
which was, indeed, inevitable, when the ecclesiastics were the only men
of knowledge. Bede believed in miraculous interpositions, and honestly
related them; nevertheless, our obligations to his industry are
invaluable. To him we owe all our knowledge of English history, from the
landing of the Saxons in Kent to his time, (nearly three centuries,)
and all our certain information respecting the various tribes who then
inhabited the island: from him it is apparent that the work called the
Saxon Chronicle copies long passages. Bede also translated St. John's
Gospel into English; and it is said, that a copy of some of St. Paul's
Epistles, in Bede's handwriting, is still preserved in the library of
Trinity College, Cambridge. His works, published at Basle, extend to
eight folio volumes.

Bede died May 26, 735, in the sixty-third year of his age. He was first
buried in his own monastery, but his remains were afterwards removed,
and interred in Durham cathedral; and, being subsequently canonized, he
was enrolled in the Romish calendar of saints. His character is thus
drawn by William of Malmsbury:--"He was a man, that, although born
in the extreme corner of the world, yet the light of his learning spread
over all parts of the earth. All the hours which he had to spare from
the monastic exercises of prayer, and singing in the choirs by day and
night, (in which he was constant, and very devout,) he most diligently
spent in study, and divided his whole time between that and his