was the aim of trained thinkers; emotional minds dwelt on the devotedness of the saintly life. Biscop himself was a traveller and a student; he desired to found his own monastery, and to bring to it treasures from foreign lands. His relative, King Ecgfrid, granted him for this purpose an estate at the mouth of the Wear (A.D. 672). There he built the Church of St. Peter, of which the western wall and porch still remain. He brought with him (as we have seen) masons, and also glaziers, who restored to England a science that had long been lost. The building was quite peculiar in its dimensions--some 60 feet long, 30 high, and 20 broad. The singular proportions of Monkwearmouth Church, which have long puzzled antiquaries, appear to be explained by a sermon in the now printed works of Bede, and possibly preached in the church itself on some anniversary of its dedication. They correspond with those of Solomon’s Temple, the units in this last case being cubits. There was a truly mathematical love of numbers in the mind of Bede, and he is evidently pleased to explain how the three dimensions above mentioned set forth in allegory the three Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The windows were small, and set high in the walls of the building. You may see two of them, their splays adorned with baluster shafts, in the western wall of the church. The south wall was adorned with paintings representing scenes from the Gospel of St. John; a series of pictures illustrating the Apocalypse occupied the northern wall. The roof was adorned with portraits of the Virgin and of the Twelve Apostles; the presumption is that it was in the form of a flat ceiling. The whole arrangement of the building thus gave fair scope for light, shelter, and decoration. There was a second church soon afterwards erected at Monkwearmouth, dedicated to St. Mary. There were also dining-rooms and porches and sleeping apartments, in connection with the last of which there was an oratory dedicated to St. Lawrence. Where these other buildings lay is uncertain. Tradition says that they were to the west of the present church. St. Mary’s Church was probably very much in this direction. In the fourteenth century "the old kirk" was used as a granary.