“Consider the manner of dress, the manner of wearing the hair, the luxurious habits of princes and of people. Look at the way in which the pagan manner of trimming the beard and cutting the hair is imitated. Do you not fear those whom you thus copy? Look at the immoderate use of clothes, beyond any necessity of human nature. This superfluity of the princes is the poverty of the people. Some are loaded with garments, while others perish with cold. Some flow over with luxuries and feasts like the rich man in purple, while Lazarus at the gate dies of hunger. Where is brotherly love? Where is that pity which we are bidden have for the wretched? The satiety of the rich man is the hunger of the poor. That Scripture saying is to be dreaded, ‘He shall have judgement without mercy that hath shewed no mercy’[135]; and we have the words of the blessed Peter the Apostle[136], ‘The time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God.’ Judgement has begun, and with terrible force, at the house of God where rest so many lights of the whole of Britain. What is to be expected for other places, if the divine judgement has not spared this most holy place? It is not for the sins of only those who dwelled there that this has been sent. “Would that the penalty that has come upon them could bring others to amend their lives. Would that the many would fear what the few have suffered, and each would say in his heart, groaning and trembling, ‘if such men, if fathers so holy, did not save their own habitation, the place of their own repose, who shall save mine?’ Save your country by assiduous prayers to God, by works of justice and of mercy. Be moderate in dress and in food. There is no better defence of a country than the equity and piety of princes, and the prayers of the servants of God.” This is the letter which Alcuin wrote to the Bishop and monks of Lindisfarne:— [Sidenote: Ep. 24. A.D. 793.] “To the best sons in Christ of the most blessed father the holy bishop Cuthbert, Higbald the bishop and the whole body of the Church of Lindisfarne, the deacon Alchuine sends greeting with heavenly benediction in Christ. “When I was with you, your friendly love was wont to give me much joy. And now that I am absent the calamity of your affliction greatly saddens me every day. The pagans have contaminated the sanctuaries of God, and have poured out the blood of saints round about the altar; have laid waste the house of our hope, have trampled upon the bodies of saints in the temple of God like dung in the street. What can I say but groan forth along with you before the altar of Christ, Spare, O Lord, spare thy people; give not thine heritage to the Gentiles, lest the pagans say ‘Where is the God of the Christians?’