4. Boniface was Anglo-Saxon by birth. At an early age he strongly felt God calling him to leave his ancestral possessions and the attractions of a life in the world and to enter a monastery, within whose safe walls he could more easily devote himself to heavenly contemplation and the practice of the counsels of perfection. He answered the call; and in the monastery he made such rapid progress in the study of both liberal and sacred sciences and also in the practice of Christian virtues that he was elected Superior. But being endowed with a lofty and generous nature, he had long cherished the desire of going abroad to uncivilized countries, to bring them the light of the Gospel message and instruct them in Christianity. Nothing could detain or hinder him, neither the thought of exile, nor long and difficult journeying, nor the dangers he was likely to encounter in an unknown land. His was an apostolic spirit so active, so eager and so vigorous, that it could not be fettered by any merely human considerarions.