by day to understand more and more of that sweet selfsacrificing love which draws all men to the feet and heart of Jesus-we see them becoming disciples of the disciples of their Master-we see their grand-children strong in choosing death rather than the denial of their Lord-we see St. Trophimus from Ephesus and Cæsarea organising the Church and bringing with him that rich and subtle tincture of the cultivated East which has never entirely faded from Gallican and British Christianity-we see his spiritual successors, Pothinus and Irenæus, carrying on the work which the gates of hell are powerless to withstand.

And "above all, and through all, and in all" we mark the presence of the unseen but ever living Christ redeeming His chosen "from among men-the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb" (Rev. xiv. 4).

"As one who came with ointments sweet;
Abettors to her fleshly guilt,

And brake and poured them at Thy feet
And worshipped Thee with spikenard spilt:
So from a body full of blame,

And tongue too deeply versed in shame
Do I pour speech upon Thy Name.

O Thou, if tongue may yet beseech,
Near to Thine awful Feet let reach
This broken spikenard of my speech!"

Laurence Housman.

ON PILGRIMAGE

In the fair Church of Amiens
There lies the relic of St. John.
Some say it is the skull of him
Beheaded, as the Gospels tell,
By Herod for a woman's whim
What time her daughter danced so well.
(St. John the Baptist, ever blest,
Bring me to his eternal rest.)

But some adore it as the head
Of John Divine, the same who said,
"My little children, love each other,"
And lay upon Lord Jesu's heart
And took in trust the blessed Mother
Till she in glory did depart.

(St. John Divine, the son of love,
Preserve me to his peace above.)

For John the Baptist's head, they say,
Was broken up in Julian's day.
One bit is in Samaria's town
And two beneath Byzantium's dome,
And Genoa has half the crown,
The nose and forehead rest in Rome.

(St. John the Baptist's scattered dust,
Bring me to kingdoms of the just.)

But there are others say again
St. John Divine escaped the pain
Of death's last conflict; for he lies
Still sleeping in his bishopric

Of Ephesus, until his eyes

Shall ope to judgment with the quick.

(St. John Divine, who sleeps so fast, Wake me to Paradise at last.)

SOM

For me, a poor unwitting man,

I pray and worship all I can,

Sure that the blessed souls in heaven
Will not be jealous of each other,
And the mistake will be forgiven
If for one saint, I love his brother.
(St. John Divine and Baptist too,
Stand at each side whate'er I do.)

And so that dubious mystery
Which of the twain those relics be
I leave to God. He knows, I wis;
How should a thing like me decide?
And whosesoever skull it is,

St. John, I trow, is satisfied.

(May God, who reads all hearts aright,

Admit my blindness to His sight.)

Henry W. Nevinson, from "Between the Acts."

"I am pale with sick desire,

For my heart is far away
From this world's fitful fire
And this world's waning day;

In a dream it overleaps

A world of tedious ills

To where the sunshine sleeps

On the everlasting hills

Say the Saints: There Angels ease us
Glorified and white.

They say: We rest in Jesus,

Where is not day nor night.

Christina Rossetti.

OME measure of faith is necessary for the pilgrim. may not be a very active or polemic faith; it may trouble itself but little about the noisy arguments of the "heretic" and the "orthodox," but the "bloom of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the perfume-seller," and it is only fitting that the breather of the incense from the

rose-casket should be gentle and gracious and sympathetic. The pilgrim will not lightly regard—or disregard -traditional sites, traditional reverence, and traditional names (which alter least when all beside them change and pass). He will not refuse to listen to the voices of almost countless generations of his predecessors, or to inhale the subtle fragrance left by their worship and devotion, their vows and sufferings.

These did not undertake pain and difficulty and danger for the sake of foisting a lie upon posterity, and the luminous cloud of witness which their memory forms about each sacred shrine has not only light within itself, but undoubtedly throws some light on the object of their veneration and devotion.

So when we know that many Popes and kings have gone in pilgrimage to Ste. Baume-John XXII., Benedict XII., Clement VI., Innocent VI., Urban V., Gregory XI., Clement VII., and Benedict XIII.-Louis IX., Louis XI., Charles VIII., Louis XII., Francis I., Charles IX., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV.-when, in one day, Philip of Valois, King of France, Adolphus IV., King of Arragon, Hugo IV., King of Cyprus, John of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, and Robert, King of Sicily, stood or knelt within the cave of Mary Magdalene as humble pilgrims, we may take it for granted that all of these firmly believed in the truth of the Provençal tradition, and that those, therefore, who lived nearer to the times of Rabanus than we do had the strongest belief in the credibility of his history.

So, too, when we find that King Henry II. of England went twice on pilgrimage to Rocamadour in old Aquitaine, and the great Roland laid down his sword, "Durandal," on the altar of the Blessed Virgin of Zaccheus, we know that some strong belief must have brought them to the shrine.

So, too, in our own land, if we look back through Norman and Danish and Saxon and Roman or British times, and watch the long procession of pilgrims pass to our earliest shrine of Glastonbury-Gildas, who ended his days here, St. Patrick, St. Benignus, St. David, St. Dunstan, King Ine of the West Saxons, King Edgar, King Edmund, King Edmund Ironsides, and King Canute, we may take it for granted that all of these firmly believed in the ancient British church of wattles, "Vetusta Ecclesia," or "ealder chirche," raised here (according to tradition) by Joseph of Arimathæa, and therefore that those who lived nearer to his time than we do had the strongest belief in the credibility of St. Joseph's mission.1

In England of to-day, fortunately, we are content to leave the legends and traditions of the countryside unsullied by futile controversy, and Tennyson's matchless poem of the Holy Grail is none the less read and valued by thousands because they know that it is for ever impossible to decide either the truth or the falsity of the Arthurian idylls and the story of St. Joseph.

In France of to-day it is quite as impossible to determine the truth or the falsity of the "Legends of the Saints," but, unfortunately, critics and apologists, not content to leave the priceless legacy of their forefathers wrapped in its silk and rose-leaves, appear to be continually quarrelling over its value, and between them have done much to tarnish if not to destroy the freshness and beauty of the ancient story.

This was so generally accepted in the Middle Ages that at the Council of Constance, in 1419, precedence was actually accorded to our bishops as representing the Senior Church of Christendom (Conybeare).