Benedict was born of the highest Anglo-Saxon nobility, in the year 628. While he was still very young, he held an office in the household of King Oswy. At twenty-five he gave up secular life, marriage, and his family, restored his lands to the king, and dedicated himself to the service of God. Before he settled in any community he went to Rome, whither he had been long attracted by that desire of praying at the tomb of the Apostles, which became so general among the Anglo-Saxons. He started in company with S. Wilfrid, but the two young Northumbrian nobles separated at Lyons. After his first visit to Rome, Benedict returned thither a second and a third time, having in the meantime assumed the monastic habit in the island of Lerins. Pope Vitalianus, struck with the piety and knowledge of so constant and zealous a pilgrim, assigned to him, as guide and interpreter, that Greek, Theodore, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, and who, when he went to England, transferred the monk of Lerins to be abbot of the principal monastery in Canterbury. After thus spending two years with the new Archbishop, the abbot Benedict, instead of re-visiting his native district, went for the fourth time to Rome, 671. He was then in the prime of life; but when it is considered what were the difficulties and dangers of such a journey--at such a time--when we remember that a journey from London to Rome then took twice as long, and was a hundred times more dangerous than a journey from London to Australia is now, we are amazed at the energy which induced so many Anglo-Saxon monks, not once only, but many times in their life, to cross the sea and the Alps on their way to Rome. His fourth expedition was undertaken in the interests of literature. He brought back a cargo of books, partly sold, partly given to him; and, in passing by Vienne, the ancient capital of the Gauls, on his return, he brought with him many more which he had deposited there in the charge of his friends. When he returned at length to his native Northumbria, he sought King Egfrid, the son of his former master, Oswy, then the reigning monarch, and told him all he had done during the twenty years that had passed since he left his country and the royal service. Then, endeavouring to communicate to him the religious ardour with which his own heart was filled, he explained to the King all he had learned at Rome and elsewhere, of ecclesiastical and monastic discipline, showing him the books and relics which he had brought back. Egfrid, who had not yet begun his struggle with Wilfrid, allowed himself to be won by the stories of the pilgrim, for whom he conceived a great affection; and in order that he might apply his experience to the government of a new community, he detached from his own possessions, and presented to Benedict, an estate situated at the mouth of the Wear, a little stream which flows through Durham, and throws itself into the Northern sea, a