Influenced by these motives, and
by the declared favor of the court, numbers of the Kentish men were
baptized; and the king himself was persuaded to submit to that rite of
Christianity. His example had great influence with his subjects; but
he employed no force to bring them over to the new doctrine. Augustine
thought proper, in the commencement of his mission, to assume the
appearance of the greatest lenity; he told Ethelbert, that the service
of Christ must be entirely voluntary, and that no violence ought ever to
be used in propagating so salutary a doctrine.[****]
The intelligence received of these spiritual conquests afforded great
joy to the Romans, who now exulted as much in those peaceful trophies as
their ancestors had ever done in their most sanguinary triumphs and most
splendid victories. Gregory wrote a letter to Ethelbert, in which, after
informing him that the end of the world was approaching, he exhorted him
to display his zeal in the conversion of his subjects, to exert rigor
against the worship of idols, and to build up the good work of
holiness by every expedient of exhortation, terror, blandishment, or
correction;[*****] a doctrine more suitable to that age, and to the
usual papal maxims, than the tolerating principles which Augustine had
thought it prudent to inculcate.
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