shepherd lad by the Leader; he is religiously inclined, and whilst his comrades sleep, he spends whole nights in prayer and meditation. One day he hears voices from out the unseen calling to him. Another night it is a vision of angels that he fancies he beholds bearing the soul of the sainted Aidan to the skies. Such was Cuthbert, a kind of mystic, a dreamer of strange dreams, destined apostle and Bishop, and next to Augustine himself the most illustrious figure in the annals of English monasticism. The church of Channelkirk (anciently Childeschirche) dedicated to the Saint, probably indicates his birth-spot. The Leader valley is full of legends of his boyhood, the whole west of Berwickshire, indeed, being haunted ground for Cuthbert's sake. Other great names in the history of early Border Christianity are those of Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monasteries of Jarrow and Monk Wearmouth; Wilfrid, the founder of Hexham; and the Venerable Bede--the "father of English learning"--whose "Church History of the English People" is the greatest of the forty-five works that bear his name. By far the most flourishing epoch in the religious development of the Border was the founding of the great Abbeys under David I.--"St. David"--as he is often called, though he was never canonized. Whilst still a Prince, he founded a monastery at Selkirk, and after his accession to the throne, there arose the four stately fanes of Kelso (1128), Melrose (1146), Jedburgh (1147), and Dryburgh (1150)--those rich and peaceful homes of art and intellectual culture whose ruins now strike us with marvel and regret. There is probably no other country district equally small in area that can boast a group of ruins at once so grand and interesting as those that lie within a few miles of each other along the banks of the Tweed and Jed. Founded almost contemporaneously, they were destroyed about the same time, by the same ruthless hands. The story of each is the story of all--burned and rebuilt, then spoiled and restored again, time after time, until finally at the dismal Hertford Invasion, in 1545, they all received their death-stroke. Other religious centres on the Scottish side were Coldingham in Berwickshire, founded in 1098 by King Edgar, son of Canmore and St. Margaret; Dundrennan, in Kirkcudbrightshire, founded in 1142 by Fergus, Lord of Galloway; and Sweetheart or New Abbey, founded in 1275 by Devorgoil, great-great-granddaughter of David the First. On the English side, the Church had a less vigorous growth, having no such munificent patron as King David, but there, too, it could boast of Carlisle Cathedral, the Abbey of Alnwick, the Priories of Lanercost, and Hexham, and the still more renowned and classic Lindisfarne. The history of the latter began, as we saw, with the year 635, when Saint Aidan accepted the invitation of King Oswald to teach the new faith to the Northumbrians. Aidan's church, built of wood, and thatched with the