Why Christians used to regard mass baptism (e.g. by order of the King) as A Good Thing

The above beautiful pool is at Holystone in Coquetdale, Northumberland; and the legend has it that three thousand Northumbrians were baptized there by St Paulinus (died 644AD), following Edwin their King's conversion to Christianity. 

However accurate to historical fact, this legend makes it evident that such mass baptism by order of the monarch was regarded as A Good Thing by Christians of that era. 

Whereas nowadays such an event would probably be regarded as at best meaningless (a result of coercion), and at worst a kind of blasphemy.  

Why the difference? 

My understanding is that back in the 600s; Men were much less individuated and alienated; less self-conscious and more group-minded. 

A good King, such as Edwin, would both love his subjects, and be loved-by them; and a real and strong spiritual connection existed between them in a way we might nowadays term "telepathic". 

Therefore; the King knew and felt what was good for his subjects and sought it (within the constraints of his character and circumstances), and his subjects (overall) implicitly granted the King a paternal authority - including over their souls. 

Such that King Edwin would not have become a Christian unless he "knew" that this was best for his people; and equally the people trusted the King's judgment and endorsed it. 

So when King Edwin became a Christian this was because his people wanted him to become a Christian, then by that same act King Edwin's people also wanted to become Christians. 

In the 600s this was simply the nature of that group-mindedness in-which people lived; but in 2026 the situation with respect to Men's consciousnesses is very different. 

We no longer experience this real and spontaneous "telepathic" connection - or, at least, we do not do so above the scale of a loving family.  

So in 2026 mass baptism of three thousand people would (almost certainly) be regarded as a consequence of some combination of top-down compulsion with propaganda. 

Such is just one instance (not a proof, but an illustration) of the difference in Man's consciousness across some fifteen-hundred years; a difference in the experienced-reality of Men of the past, and that of Men of the present. 

It is this change that underlies the decline in spiritual authority, hence what used-to-be, the necessary and intermediary role of Christian churches - and of all other religious institutions. 

(And indeed, also of all state institutions.) 

Leaders - whether spiritual, such as Saints; or temporal, such as monarchs - are no longer in a significant state of reciprocal mental connection with those they rule. 

What was possible then, is not necessarily possible now. 

That natural, indeed unavoidable, groupishness of consciousness which was (e.g. in the early 600s, in Northumbria) both inevitable and (potentially) a cause of good; is no longer our reality.