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“Man’s life is like a sparrow, mighty King!

That—while at banquet with your Chiefs you sit

Housed near a blazing fire—is seen to flit

Safe from the wintry tempest. Fluttering,

Here did it enter; there, on hasty wing,

Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold;

But whence it came we know not, nor behold

Whither it goes. Even such that transient thing,

The human Soul; not utterly unknown

While in the Body lodged, her warm abode;

But from what world she came, what use or weal

On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown;

This mystery if the Stranger can reveal,

His be a welcome cordially bestowed!”

THE FIRST ENGLISH BISHOP

After this the king gave Paulinus permission to preach the Gospel openly, and he himself renounced idolatry, and in April 627, with a large number of his people, he was baptized at York in the little church which was the first to be built on the site of York Minster. After this Paulinus baptized in the river Swale, and later he came to the province of “Lindissi,” and spent some time in Lincoln, converting Blaecca the “Reeve” of the city, and baptizing in the presence of the king a great number of people in the Trent either at Littleborough or Torksey.