Of these heathen St
Wilfrid at once became the Apostle. For, as Bede tells us, he "not only
delivered them from the misery of perpetual damnation, but also from an
inexpressible calamity of temporal death, for no rain had fallen in
that province in three years before his arrival, whereupon a dreadful
famine ensued which cruelly destroyed the people. In short, it is
reported that very often forty or fifty men, being spent with want,
would go together to some precipice, or to the sea-shore, and there
hand in hand perish by the fall, or be swallowed up by the waves. But
on the very day on which the nation received the baptism of faith there
fell a soft but plentiful rain; the earth revived again, and, the
verdure being restored to the fields, the season was pleasant and
fruitful. Thus the former superstition being rejected, and idolatry
exploded, the hearts and flesh of all rejoiced in the living God and
became convinced that He who is the true God had, through His heavenly
grace, enriched them with wealth, both temporal and spiritual. For the
bishop, when he came into the province and found so great misery from
famine, taught them to get their food by fishing; for their sea and
rivers abounded in fish, but the people had no skill to take them
except eels alone.
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