“Let your dilection know that by the mercy of God the holy Church in the parts of Europe has peace, advances, grows. The Old Saxons and the Frisians have been converted to the faith of Christ at the instance of Karl, some by rewards, some by threats. Last year the said king with a great host attacked the Sclaves, whom we called Vionuds, and brought them into subjection. “Further, the dukes and tribunes of the same most Christian king have taken from the Saracens a large part of Spain, with a coast line three hundred miles in length. But—ah the grief!—those same accursed Saracens are dominant over the whole of Africa and the greatest part of Asia.” To Higbald of Lindisfarne, in the letter given at page 132, he writes:— [Sidenote: Ep. 24. A.D. 793.] “Almost the whole of Europe was destroyed by the fire and the sword of the Goths or the Huns. But now, by the mercy of God, as the sky shines bright with stars so Europe shines with the ornament of churches, and in them the offices of the Christian religion flourish and increase.” Writing to his most intimate friend Arno, Archbishop of Salzburg, who was about to accompany an army against the Avars, Alcuin warns him against the premature imposition of tithes:— [Sidenote: Ep. 64. post Mai. 796.] “Be a preacher of piety, not an exactor of tithes; for the freshly converted soul is to be fed with the milk of apostolical piety until it grows, strengthens, and becomes strong enough to receive solid food. Tithes, it is said, have subverted the faith of the Saxons. Why should we place on the neck of the ignorant a yoke which neither we nor our brethren have been able to bear?” Again, writing to Karl after the subjugation of the Huns, Alcuin says this:— [Sidenote: Ep. 67. post Aug. 796.] “Now let your most wise and God-pleasing piety provide for the new people pious preachers, of honest life, learned in sacred science, imbued with evangelical precepts, intent in their preaching on the examples of the holy Apostles, who were wont to minister milk—that is, gentle precepts—to their hearers who were beginners in the faith....