and even of this the genuineness is "questioned by the Bollandists." According to the new legend, then, St. Ninian, when bishop in Galloway, kept a school there: and out of that circumstance grows the following story, which I think my reader will agree with me is worth transcribing. The biographer professes "to adopt or paraphrase the words of St. Aelred."

It happened on a time that one of the boys offended, and preparations were made to punish him. The boy, in alarm, ran away; but knowing the power and goodness of the Saint, and thinking he should find a solace in his flight if he did but take with him anything belonging to the good Bishop, he took off the staff on which St. Ninian used to support himself. In his eagerness to escape he looked out for a boat which might carry him away. The boats of the country St. Aelred then describes. They were of wicker work, large enough to hold three men; over this wicker work a hide was stretched, and the boat would float and be impervious to the waves. They are the same boats which Pliny and Cæsar describe, and in which the Britons would cross the sea to France or Ireland, or even go voyages of many days. They are called currachs or coracles; they were long in use in the Western Isles, and still are among the fishermen on the Wye.

There happened just then to be many large ones making ready on the shore. The wicker work was finished, but the hides not put on. He very incautiously got in, and the light boat at first kept on the top of the waves, the water not at once making its way through; soon however it did so, and there seemed no prospect but that it must fill and go down. He knew not whether to run the risk of leaping out or staying and sinking. In the moment of his distress, however, he thought of the holiness and power of St. Ninian; contrite for his fault, as though weeping at his feet, he confesses his guilt, entreats pardon, and by the most holy merit of the Saint begs the aid of Heaven. Trusting,

with childlike simplicity, that the staff was not without its virtue, as belonging to the Saint, he fixed it in one of the openings. pp. 106, 107.

Why the child should imagine that fixing the staff in one of the openings could have any particular efficacy, is not very easily discovered.

The water retreated, and, as if in fear, presumed not to pour in. "These," says the saintly Aelred, "these are the works of Christ, Who did say to His disciples, he that believeth in Me the works that I do, shall he do also, and greater things than these shall he do.-pp. 107, 108.

Yet, considering the only authority pretended for this story is a life of St. Ninian, which, if it be genuine, is confessed to have been written seven hundred years after his death, one might have thought that most Christians would have been afraid to make such an application of the Lord's words.

A gentle wind arose and forced on the little boat, the staff supplied the place of sail, and rudder, and anchor to stay his course. The people crowding on the shore saw the little ship, like some bird swimming along the waves, without either oar or sail. The boy comes to shore, and to spread more widely the fame of the holy Bishop, he in strong faith fixed the staff in the ground, and prayed that as a testimony to the miracle, it might take root, send forth branches, flowers, and fruit. Presently the dry wood shot out roots, was clothed with fresh bark, produced leaves and branches, and grew into a considerable tree. Nay, to add miracle to miracle, at the root of the tree a spring of the clearest water burst forth, and poured out a glassy stream, which wound its way with gentle murmurs, grateful to the eye, and, from the merits of the Saint, useful and health-giving to the sick.

With what interest would this tale be told to the pilgrim

strangers, and the tree and fountain shown as the evidences of its truth in those days of simple faith! And with hearts lifted up to God, and trusting in the aid of St. Ninian's prayers, many a poor sick man would drink of the clear stream.

Men of this day may smile at their simplicity; but better surely is the mind which receives as no incredible thing, the unusual interposition of Him who worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will; better the spirit which views the properties of a salubrious spring as the gift of God, granted to a faithful and holy servant, than that which would habitually exclude the thought of the Great Doer of all, by resting on the Laws of Nature as something independent of Him, not, as they are, the way in which He usually works; or thanklessly, and as a matter of course receive the benefit of some mineral waters. pp. 108, 109.

But surely there is no need (except for a particular class of people) to rush into one extreme of folly, in order to avoid another. This, however, is altogether beside the question. The question is, what authority there is for the story. This talk of simple faith, and of miracles being worked, takes the story altogether out of the class of mythic legends. It is either history or a falsehood. And, as no sane person could dream of regarding it as history, I shall beg my reader to consider, what effects are likely to be produced on the minds of the sort of people for whom these Lives of the Saints must be designed, by teaching them to apply the sacred words of our Redeemer to such preposterous fables.

VOL. I.

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CHAPTER XXXII.

ST. NEOT AND THE LOCK-THE THREE FISHES-THE FOX AND THE SHOE.

THE Legend of St. Neot contains one or two miracles at least that cannot well be passed over. The author commences his work by stating, that;

It is not pretended that every fact in the following Legend can be supported on sound historical evidence. With the materials which we have, it would not only be presumptuous, but impossible, to attempt to determine any thing with any certainty, respecting them; how much is true, how much fiction.

Which, if one did not know how these books are written, would seem designed to prepare the reader for an absence of miraculous stories in the narrative. It seems, by this author's account, there are five old lives of St. Neot extant, the earliest having been written about a hundred and fifty years after his death, and that "of these the first thing we remark, is a striking disagreement in the details of the several narratives:" and yet, that "all these facts are related with extreme minuteness and accuracy of detail," which two things being put together, will, I suppose, be thought to render the authority of the whole rather questionable. The author's reflection is curious:

Now this, if not the highest evidence in their favour, (which it may be) would seem to indicate that they

allowed themselves a latitude in their narratives, and made free use of their imagination to give poetic fulness to their compositions. In other words, their Lives are not so much strict biographies, as myths, edifying stories compiled from tradition, and designed not so much to relate facts, as to produce a religious impression on the mind of the hearer.—p. 74.

What is the value of religious impressions produced in this way, I should hope, my readers will be at no loss to conjecture; but certain it is, that these writers do consider it perfectly allowable to compose religious myths-stories, where, supposing the existence of the hero to be assumed as a fact, any quantity of imaginary sayings or doings may be attributed to him—and amongst the rest, miracles and visions, which imply the interposition of the Almighty. The mode in which this is justified will come to be considered hereafter-at present I am concerned only with the fact. And on' these slender materials they do think it lawful, not only to construct history and biography, but even to make solemn acts of devotion. I must beg my reader, in perusing the following passage, to recollect that this author has nothing to go on for the facts of his story but contradictory and conflicting legends, which he confesses can only be regarded "as myths;"— accounts so irreconcilably contradictory, that he acknowledges that with such materials, “it would not only be presumptuous, but impossible, to attempt to determine any thing with any certainty, respecting