This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 edition. Excerpt: ...the Irish, and although in this way some knowledge of the Christian system must have been diffused among them, yet the formal introduction of it into their country was a full century later than its introduction into Denmark and Sweden. And when it was introduced, it was not by missionaries, but by ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 edition. Excerpt: ...the Irish, and although in this way some knowledge of the Christian system must have been diffused among them, yet the formal introduction of it into their country was a full century later than its introduction into Denmark and Sweden. And when it was introduced, it was not by missionaries, but by kings, whose carnal weapons assorted but badly with the spiritual warfare which they undertook. The complicated relations that subsisted at this time betwixt the English and the Danes and the Norwegians, it is not my part to explain. We are in the habit of hearing it stated that Alfred the Great subdued the Danes, and drove them out of England. This is not true, excepting in a very general sense. Long after his time there were Danish princes in England, sometimes asserting independence, and sometimes acknowledging subjection to the Saxon kings; now fighting with them, and now against them. And very similar was the position of many Norwegians or Norsemen in England. Harold, a Norwegian king, was dethroned by his brother Eric, and took refuge in England. His son Haco was brought up at the court of Athelstane, grandson of Alfred the Great. Hearing that the supplanter of his father had made himself detestable to nobles and people by his tyranny, Haco returned to Norway, and was soon seated on the throne, Eric in his turn fleeing to England, which was then, as it is now, and we trust will ever be, the asylum of all who are in distress. The great desire of Haco's life seems to have been the abolition of heathenism and the substitution of Christianity as the religion of his people. That he was always judicious in the methods which he employed for this end, I will not assert; but the difficulties with which he had to contend were very great. I quote...
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