Ecgbert’s position in the sight of God, Bede says, will be very serious if he neglects to do as he advises, especially if he takes temporal gifts or payments from those to whom he does not give heavenly gifts. This last point Bede presses home with affectionate earnestness upon the “most beloved Prelate”. “We have heard it reported,” he says, “that there are many villages and dwellings, on inaccessible hills and in deep forests, where for many years no bishop has been seen, no bishop has ministered; and yet no single person has been free from the payment of tribute to the bishop; and that although not only has he never come to confirm those who have been baptized, but there has been no teacher to instruct them in the faith or show them the difference between good and evil. And if we believe and confess,” he continues, “that in the laying on of hands the Holy Spirit is received, it is clear that that gift is absent from those who have not been confirmed. When a bishop has, from love of money, taken nominally under his government a larger part of the population than he can by any means visit with his ministrations in one whole year, the peril is great for himself, and great for those to whom he claims to be overseer while he is unable to oversee them.” Ecgbert has, Bede tells him, a most ready coadjutor in the King of Northumbria, Ceolwulf, Ecgbert’s near relative, his first cousin, whom Ecgbert’s brother succeeded. The [arch]bishop should advise the King to place the ecclesiastical arrangements of the Northumbrian nation on a better footing. This would best be done by the appointment of more bishops. Pope Gregory had bidden Augustine to arrange for twelve bishops in the Northern Province, the Bishop of York to receive the pall as Metropolitan. Ecgbert should aim at that number. It may here be noted that in this year of grace 1908 there are still only nine diocesan bishops in the Northern Province, besides the archbishop, and five of these nine have been created in the lifetime of some of us. Bristol knows to its heavy cost that Ripon was the first of the five.