The rest of the party proceeded without him. Now upon and around the hill of Brefi vast numbers of people were assembled. Certain questions disquieted the land of Cymru. Some hundred and fifty years before, Morgan the Briton, who is also called Pelagius, being at Rome, where he lived ascetically and reasoned unceasingly, hatched from his brain a subtle heresy. Adam's sin was his alone, and brought no curse upon his children; the will of a man to do good was enough to secure him from sin; Christ died only that His example might prompt and incite the well-disposed to greater efforts, and that those baptized in His Name might enter after death into a heaven superior to that of unbelievers. Now, of all the races of the earth, the race which set most store by the sayings of Morgan was his own nation of the Briton, who love discussion before all things, and especially discussion of the properties of the soul. Even so late as this, the Pelagians in Britain were many, and tampered with the faith of many, exhorting their fellow-Christians to forego the aid of the sacraments, as tending to superstitious bondage. And that some even of the clergy led gross and scandalous lives, we have Saint Gildas to witness. The day of the synod was hot to oppression. From early morning until past noon, one after another, bishop and priest addressed the gathering. There was as much embroidered rhetoric, impassioned argument, and brilliant, aimless quotation as always abound wherever the Cymry are met together; but to no one came the trenchant words that would sever the knots of their problems. As for the greatest among them, Dyfrig, and Deiniol, and Gildas, they seemed tongue-tied by the heavy weather, and hopelessly dreary. Then said Dyfrig the aged saint: "One who was made bishop by the Patriarch of Caer Salem is not present amongst us, a man who is eloquent, full of grace, and approved in religion, who has spread the Gospel far and wide in the desert regions of Britain, and has thoroughly purged the pagan land of Dyfed: David the son of Sandde, of Mynyw in Pebidiog. Let us send for him." Gildas, Dyfrig, and Deiniol, and the young Aidan, sought and found David, and to Brefi hill they led him. Now the sides of the hill were white as a flowering orchard with the bleached garments of the priests and bishops who crowded thereon, and for a mile or more on every hand stretched the great throng of the people. When David came among them, the holy men made a pile of their cloaks, satchels, and books that he might mount upon it, for he was a short man (they say three cubits in height). So he stood up before them in all his greatness, and he seemed to tower high above them all.