They entered Canterbury in procession, preceded by two persons who bore a silver cross and the figure of Christ painted on a board, singing, as they went, litanies to avert the wrath of God from that city and people.
The king was among their first converts.

Tho principal of his nobility, as usual, followed that example, moved, as it is related, by many signal miracles, but undoubtedly by the extraordinary zeal of the missionaries, and the pious austerity of their lives.

The new religion, by the protection of so respected a prince, who held under his dominion or influence all the countries to the southward of the Humber, spread itself with great rapidity.

Paganism, after a faint resistance, everywhere gave way.

And, indeed, the chief difficulties which Christianity had to encounter did not arise so much from the struggles of opposite religious prejudices as from the gross and licentious manners of a barbarous people.