to preach to, because they were untameable men, and of a stubborn and barbarous disposition. They, as is testified, in a great council seriously debated what was to be done, being desirous of the good of the nation in the matter which it demanded, and grieving that they had not received the preacher sent to them. Then said Aidan, who was also present in the council, to the priest then spoken of, “I am of opinion, brother, that you were more severe to your unlearned hearers than you ought to have been, and did not at first, conformably to the apostolic discipline, give them the milk of more gentle doctrine, till, being by degrees nourished with the Word of God, they should be capable of greater perfection, and be able to practise God’s sublimer precepts.” Having heard these words, all who sat with him, turning on him their eyes, began diligently to weigh what he had said, and presently concluded that he deserved to be made a bishop, and ought to be sent to instruct the unbelievers and unlearned, since he was found to be endowed with the grace of a singular discretion, which is the mother of other virtues; and accordingly, being ordained, they sent him to preach.’[308] Bede adds that ‘most of those that had come to preach were monks, and that Bishop Aidan was himself a monk of the island called Hii, whose monastery for a long time held the pre-eminence over almost all those of the northern Scots, and all those of the Picts;’ and again, ‘that from the aforesaid island, and from this college of monks, was Aidan sent to instruct the province of the Angles in Christ, having received the episcopal grade. At this time Segine, abbot and priest, presided over that monastery.’ There can therefore be little doubt that the great council was held in Iona under the presidency of Abbot Segine; and it would almost appear that he himself had gone personally to Northumbria on the failure of the first mission, as Adamnan refers to a conversation which he says Abbot Failbe solemnly declared that he himself heard between King Osuald and Abbot Segine after the battle of the Heavenly Field had been fought.[309]