character than that of the civil rulers. No doubt a church had been
formed and organized. There were bishops, so called, in the several
cities; but their authority was little concentrated and their tenets
were discordant. Pilgrimages were even made to the sacred places of
Palestine; and at a very early period monasteries were founded. That of
Bangor, or the Great Circle, seems to have had some relation to the
ancient Druidical worship, upon which it was probably engrafted in that
region where Druidism had long flourished. There were British versions
of the Bible. But that the church had no sustaining power at the period
when civil society was so wholly disorganized, may be inferred from
circumstances which preceded the complete overthrow of Christian rites
by Saxon heathendom.

Bede devotes several chapters of his _Ecclesiastical History_ to the
actions of St. Germanus, who came expressly to Britain to put down the
Pelagian heresy; and, amid the multitude of miraculous circumstances,
records how "the authors of the perverse notions lay hid, and, like the
evil spirits, grieved for the loss of the people that was rescued from
them. At length, after mature deliberation, they had the boldness to
enter the lists, and appeared, being conspicuous for riches, glittering
in apparel, and supported by the flatteries of many." The people,
according to Bede, were the judges of this great controversy, and gave
their voices for the orthodox belief.

Whether the Pelagians were expelled from Britain by reason or by force,
it is evident that, in the middle of the fifth century, there was a
strong element of religious disunion very generally prevailing; and that
at a period when the congregations were in a great degree independent of
each other, and therefore difficult of subjection to a common authority,
the rich and the powerful had adopted a creed which was opposed to the