Note 129 — Chapter VIII

Three miles on, we come to the furthest outpost of the East Anglian uplands, the little market town of Soham, situated on an almost isolated peninsula of the chalk, which here runs out into the fen, and upon the very borders[129] of the Isle of Ely. The Cathedral is here a conspicuous object, rising high upon its hill over the intervening fen, and only five miles away. But Soham is associated with a yet earlier development of local Christianity than Ely itself. Forty years before St. Etheldreda founded her Abbey, one was here established by St. Felix, "the Apostle of East Anglia." That title does not mean that he was absolutely the first to preach the Gospel to the East English, but the first whose work was permanent. For the introduction of the Faith into these parts met with more than one set-back before it was fairly established.