68 ROGER OP AVENDO VER. [A.D. 616. Kent to advise Avith his fellow bishops, Laurence and Justus, what was to be done in these circumstances: and it was unanimously determined that it was better for them all to return to their own country and there sen-e God in freedom, than continue without any advantage among a people who were rebels against the faith. Mellitus and Justus accordingly first withdrew into the parts of France, there to await the issue of things. Not long after this, the kings who had driven from them the preacher of truth, went forth to battle against the nation of the Gewissas, and, by the judgment of heaven, they all perished, with the whole of their forces. How Laurence, archbishop of Canterbury, was whipped by the prince of the apostles. Archbishop Laurence, being about to follow Mellitus and Justus, and to leave Britain, on the eve of his departure, ordered a couch to be prepared for him for the night in the church of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul; on which, after pouring forth many prayers and tears unto God for the welfare of the church, he lay down to rest, and in his sleep there appeared to him the most blessed prince of the apostles, who, in the deep silence of the night, inflicted on him a long and severe flagellation, demanding of him, with apostolic severity, wherefore he left the flock which he had committed to him, or to what shepherd he left in charge Christ's sheep whom he was about to leave in the midst of wolves ? " Hast thou forgotten," said he, " my example, who, for the sake of Christ's little ones, committed to me as a proof of his love, endured bonds, stripes, imprisonments, afflictions, and at last the very death of the cross, at the hands of unbelievers, that I might receive the crown of Christ?" Animated alike by the flagellation and exhortations of the blessed apostle, Laurence, the servant of Christ, went to the king as soon as it was morning, and, lifting up his garments, showed him how his body had been torn with stripes. Greatly astonished thereat, the king demanded who there Avas in his kingdom that had dared to inflict stripes on so high a personage ? On hearing that it was for the sake of his salvation that the bishop had endured such wounds and sufferings at the hands of Christ's apostle, he feared exceedingly, and straightway anathematizing all idolatrous worship, and renouncing his