Among many friends, he had one who was at once his oldest and most beloved, a priest called Herbert, who lived as an anchorite in an island of Lake Derwentwater. Every year Herbert came from his peaceful lake to visit his friend in the other island, beaten and undermined continually by the great waves of the Northern Sea; and upon that wild rock, to the accompaniment of winds and waves, they passed several days together, in a tender solitude and intimacy, talking of the life to come. When Cuthbert, then a bishop, came for the last time to Carlisle, Herbert seized the opportunity, and hastened to refresh himself at that fountain of eternal benefits which flowed for him from the holy and tender heart of his friend. "My brother," the bishop said to him, "thou must ask me now all that thou wantest to know, for we shall never meet again in this world." At these words Herbert fell at his feet in tears. "I conjure thee," he cried, "do not leave me on this earth behind thee; remember my faithful friendship, and pray God that, after having served Him together in this world, we may pass into His glory together." Cuthbert threw himself on his knees at his friend's side, and after praying for some minutes, said to him, "Rise, my brother, and weep no more; God has granted to us that which we have both asked from Him." And, in fact, though they never saw each other again here below, they died on the same day and at the same hour; the one in his isle bathed by the peaceful waters of a solitary lake, the other upon his granite rock, fringed by the ocean foam; and their souls, says Bede, reunited by that blessed death, were carried together by the angels into the eternal kingdom. This coincidence deeply touched the Christians of Northumbria, and was long engraven in their memory. Seven centuries later, in 1374, the bishop of Carlisle appointed that a mass should be said on the anniversary of the two saints, in the island where the Cumbrian anchorite died, and granted an indulgence of forty days to all who crossed the water to pray there in honour of the two friends. After many translations, the body of S. Cuthbert found repose in Durham cathedral, where it rested in a magnificent shrine till the reign of Henry VIII., when the royal commissioners visited the cathedral with the purpose of demolishing all shrines. The following is a condensed account of this horrible profanation, given by a writer of the period, or shortly after[67]:-- [67] "A description or briefe declaration of all ye auntient monuments, &c., written in 1593," but this seems to have been written originally in Latin somewhat earlier. It has been several times republished, lastly by Sanderson, in 1767.