In the age after Augustine, perhaps the most famous preacher was Salvian (390-484), surnamed the Master of Bishops, not that he ever was a Bishop himself, but because so many of his pupils at Lerins became eventually prelates in Gaul. Among the most eminent of these was St. Cæsarius of Arles (470-542), son of the Count of Chalons. He passed his youth in the shadow of the cloister of Lerins, and left it only to succeed the first fathers of that peaceful isle, Honoratus and Hilary, upon the archiepiscopal throne of Arles. He was for half a century the most illustrious and most influential of the Bishops of Southern Gaul. He presided over four Councils, and directed the great controversies of his time. He was passionately beloved by his flock, whose hearts he swayed with his fervid eloquence, of which 130 still extant sermons bear the indelible stamp. Another of the early preachers of Gaul was St. Eucher (434), whom Bossuet calls “the Great;” and he, too, issued from that great nursery of saints, the Isle of Lerins. Valerian of Cemele (450), has left behind him sermons plain and sound, but devoid of eloquence. Basil of Seleucia was a preacher of fame in the East. Photius says, that “his discourse is figurative and lofty. He observes, as much as any man, an even tone. He has united clearness with agreeableness, but his tropes and figures are very troublesome. By these he wearies his hearer always, and creates in him a bad opinion of himself, as an ignorant person, incapable of blending art with nature, and powerless to keep from excess.” Photius is rather too hard on Basil, whose sermons are really stirring and good. The discourses of Andrew of Crete (740) are also excellent; those of John Damascene are poor. Turning to England, we shall find Bede instructing our Anglo-Saxon forefathers in the faith of Christ and in the mysteries of the Gospel; and Alfric, in 990, compiling homilies in the vulgar tongue, to the number of eighty, and, among others, that famous one on the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, which Matthew Parker could flourish in the face of his Romish opponents, saying, “What now is become of your boasted argument of apostolic tradition? see here that the novelties with which you charge us are older than the doctrines which you oppose to them!” Wulfstan, Archbishop of York (1003), is known through one remarkable sermon, “Sermo Lupi ad Anglos quando Dani maxime persecuti sunt eos.”