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SAINTS OR SINNERS:
WHICH ?
BY
CHARLES WATTS,
Author of “ History of Freethought,” “Secularism: Constructive and
Destructive,” “The Philosophy of Unbelieff etc., etc.
New York:
“TRUTHSEEKER” OFFICE, 33, CLINTON PLACE.
Ten Cents.
��SAINTS OR SINNERS:
WHICH ?
and sinners are not two selected from the
SAINTS every-day lifetowebecome in contact. world, com
numerous classes
met with in the
with
which in
They
prise the entire population of the globe. This is the one
broad and essential division which includes all mankind.
There are black races and white ones; but, then, there are
also the intermediate red, olive, and dusky. There are tall
men and short ones, heavy men and light ones; but not to
the exclusion of those of middle height or weight, which
stand somewhere between the two. Even the terms “ vir
tuous” and “vicious” will not serve for an exhaustive
distinction, for there are probably none so virtuous as to
have no vices, and none so vicious as to be destitute of all
virtue; while a great number are either so indifferent to
both sides that they can hardly be said to belong to one
class or the other, or to have the good and evil so balanced
in their character that neither adjective will describe them
accurately. In all other matters without exception gradual
shadings may be detected, by which one class merges into
the other, to say nothing of the fact that they will be fre
quently found overlapping each other. In reference to
Saints and Sinners, however, we have a well-marked and
perfectly distinct line, which nothing can erase—a gulf
which cannot be spanned, a chasm with no bridge possible.
The two classes are distinct in species, in genera, and even
in order, to use a simile from Natural History. They are
separated the one from the other by a line which cannot be
wiped out, and no interchange of qualities between them is
possible. The human race, according to orthodox theology,
is just divided into these two classes, and no further division
on those lines is for one moment to be thought of. Some
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
Saints may come very near being Sinners, and a few Sinners
may, by.a large stock of natural goodness, a strong will bent
in the direction of virtue, and very favourable surroundings,
approach remarkably near the line which marks them off
from the Saints ; but neither can quite get rid of that which
indicates them as distinct beings. There are no gradations,
it is said, between Heaven and Hell, and so there are none
between those supposed to be destined hereafter to occupy
places in these regions. If it be asked, Is such a division
logically possible, judging from what is known of human
character ? the answer is, The distinction is not based on
character nor on any human quality whatever. So far as all
ordinary classification goes, it is purely arbitrary • its ground
work is, however, professedly supernatural. In the New
Testament the whole race is symbolised as being composed
only of sheep and goats, and in all the creeds of orthodox
Churches the one distinction drawn is between believers
and unbelievers, the converted and the unconverted—in
other words, Saints and Sinners. Of course, it is considered
possible for a Sinner to become a Saint, or for a Saint to
lapse into a Sinner • but no admixture of the qualities of
the two can under any circumstances occur. The instant a
man ceases to be a Saint he is a Sinner out and out, and
not the smallest vestige of his saintliness remains; while, on
the other hand, the Sinner, however depraved, may, by a
kind of spiritual transformation, be changed in the twinkling
of an eye into a Saint; but then he is no longer a Sinner,
even in the most infinitesimal degree. The separating
agent is the alleged supernatural, and as such defies logic
and all human mental analysis. Thus it is useless to urge
the question, Is any division of mankind into two classes
possible ? because the only reply to be received is that it is
accomplished by the grace of God, and with God all things
are said to be possible; and there the controversy must end.
The real question to be considered, therefore, is, What are
the characteristics of each of these classes, and wherein do
they differ ? Of course, I belong to the Sinners, and it may
be said, therefore, that I am incompetent to discuss the
Saints.. But, then, it may be replied, in the first place, that
the Saints are often found discussing the Sinners, and this
would, upon such a theory, be equally unfair; in the second,
that, as no person can be both, such discussion must be
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
5
altogether futile from this point of view; and, thirdly, that
we have ample material before us from the Saints themselves
upon which to form an opinion. It will be my endeavour,
therefore, to do ample justice to both Saints and Sinners,
dealing with their respective characters and value as deli
neated in history and known by observation. Here we
shall find no lack of material from which to judge of the
part they have played, and are still playing, in the ranks of
every-day life. It is hardly likely that the members of these
two classes will agree in the estimate they form of each
other. Nor can they well work together upon any lines
where their peculiar qualities will be likely to exercise any
sort of influence. They have to keep, therefore, largely
apart. The Marquis of Salisbury once, in the House of
Lords, describing Church parties, provoked a good deal of
laughter by an Irishism, called a bull. He said : “ A con
gregation may be divided among themselves into two
parties; yet, if there were any means of separating them,
they would both go on happily together—I mean,” he added,
“ apart.” Well, the Saints and Sinners are separated ; but
we can go on very happily together—I mean apart.
Saints and Sinners : what are we to say of them ? The
Saints are holy, the Sinners unholy; the Saints are righteous,
the Sinners unrighteous; the Saints celestial, the Sinners
infernal; the Saints are the children of God, the Sinners
the offspring of—well, “ the Evil One,” as the Revised Ver
sion has it. The Saints are to sit on clouds and sing psalms
through all eternity; the Sinners to gnash their teeth in
endless woe for ever and ever, and, as Lorenzo Dow says,
for five or six everlastings on the top of that. The Saints
are regarded as the “ goody-goody ” people, not on account
of their own intrinsic worth, but in consequence of their
professed allegiance to a special faith ; the Sinners are those
denounced by the Church as unregenerated members of
society, because they prefer fidelity to conviction rather than
to creeds and dogmas born of a cruel and mind-degenerating
theology. The Saints are those who, thinking they lack the
power of self-improvement, rely upon an external “Saviour”
for their moral elevation ; the Sinners are those who depend
upon the potency of an enlightened and cultivated hu
manity for the inspiration to ethical advancement, feeling
assured—
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
“ That within yourselves deliverance must be sought:
Each man his prison makes.”
In discussing Saints we come at once upon a sub-division
made by themselves. There are Catholic Saints and Protes
tant Saints. It is by no means certain that one of those
classes would admit, except in a very limited degree, the
saintship of the other. But each will contend of itself that
it comprises Saints par excellence. Of course the Catholic
Saints differ widely from the Protestant Saints upon most
points ; but upon one thing they are agreed—namely, that to
be a Saint it is necessary to devote one’s attention especially
to matters which relate to the Church rather than to the world,
to the supposed future life in preference to the present, to
the effort to please God rather than to the desire to ennoble
man, and, finally, to the sanctification of the soul rather
than to the purification of the body. The method of doing
this is not the same in the two cases, but the end is identical.
The faith of the Saint in each case is admirably set forth by
Lowell in “ The Biglow Papers —
“ I du believe in special ways
O’ prayin’ an’ convartin’;
The bread comes back in many days,
An’ buttered, tu, fer sartin;—
I mean in preyin’ till one busts
On wut the party chooses,
An’ in convartin’ public trusts
To very privit uses.
*
*
*
*
“ I du believe in prayer an’ praise
To him thet hez the grantin’
O’ jobs,—in every thin’ thet pays,
But most of all in Cantin’ ;
This doth my cup with marcies fill,
This lays all thought o’ sin to rest,—
I don't believe in princerple,
But, O, I du in interest.
*
*
%
*
“ In short, I firmly du believe
In Humbug generally,
Fer it’s a thing thet I perceive
To hev a solid vally ;
This heth my faithful shepherd ben,
In pasturs sweet heth led me,
An’ this ’ll keep the people green
To feed ez they hev fed me.”
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
7
The number of Roman Catholic Saints is so great as
to be perfectly bewildering; and it is quite impossible to
remember the names of half of them. The principle upon
which men are canonised—and, of course, afterwards
worshipped—is very difficult to discover; but usually it is,
I suppose, some kind of service rendered to the Church—
very often service of an exceedingly questionable character,
judged of from any human standpoint. The members of
the Church who are elevated into Saints, upon very much
the same principle as the Pagan apotheosis of heroes into
gods, are much less numerous to-day than in the past, for
reasons which it is difficult to understand, unless the Church
is admitted to be degenerating in spiritual power or zeal or
holiness, or whatever else may be looked upon as necessary
to constitute a Saint. During the first three centuries of the
Christian Church nearly every bishop became a Saint; but
in the last three hundred years only one has been so honoured,
and he by no means a brilliant example—viz., Pius V., who,
according to Lord Acton, was the instigator of a contem
plated murder of the English monarch. Ireland, that
favoured soil for the Roman Catholic superstition, in which
Romanism, with the rank luxuriance of a noxious weed
poisoning the very atmosphere of one of the most beautiful
countries on the earth, in three centuries added eight hun
dred and fifty Saints to the calendar, while, according to
Father Burke, it has not elevated one since Lawrence O’Toole,
who lived seven hundred years ago. It is unnecessary here
to enter upon the character of these Saints. History recordsthe fact that, for the most part, they were men guilty of the
worst of crimes, and destitute of those grand virtues which
exalt and ennoble human character. They were haters of
freedom and the greatest enemies of progress that the world
has ever seen. The Church which they serve so faithfully,
and to which they owe their apotheosis, has crushed out all
liberty among peoples by the heavy tread of its iron hoofs,,
wherever it has been able to hold up its head and send forth
its pestilential breath to poison the springs of moral, political,
and intellectual life. With these Saints perjury is often a duty
when it can serve the purpose of the Church, truth dangerous
to the people, murder in the cause of religion a virtue, perse
cution to death commendable, lying desirable, uncleanli
ness profitable, and every vile abomination on earth sicken
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
ing to contemplate defensible on theological grounds. The
perfection which saintship implies is frequently a perfection
of intellectual subjection and moral degradation, resulting
often in the most terrible form of criminality and all the
foulness which even bad men of the world would shudder
at with horror. The most eminent doctors of the Church
may be quoted as not only tolerating every conceivable
crime, but even instigating and enjoying it—and, indeed,
threatening eternal perdition to those who were not prepared
to perform acts at which pure humanity would stand aghast.
The history of saintship is written in blood and engraven
with fire. To such a history the following words of the
poet are exceedingly applicable :—
“ It doth avail not that I speak to thee ;
Ye cannot change, for ye are old and grey.
But you have chosen your lot; your fame shall be
A book of blood, whence, in a milder day,
Men shall learn truth when you are wrapped in clay.”
Recently the Dublin Review (vol. xx., p. 192), a high-class
Roman Catholic authority, thus delivered itself on the ques
tion of education :—“ We are very far from meaning that
ignorance is the Catholic youth’s best preservative against
intellectual danger; but it is a very powerful one neverthe
less, and those who deny this are but inventing a theory in
the very teeth of manifest facts. A Catholic destitute of
intellectual tastes, whether in a higher or a lower rank, may,
probably enough, be tempted to idleness, frivolity, gambling,
sensuality; but in none but the very rarest cases will he be
tempted to that which, in the Catholic view, is an immeasur
ably greater calamity than any of these, or all put together
—viz., deliberate doubt of the truth of his religion.” Is it
to be wondered at that, with such teaching, the greatest
ignorance and the grossest superstition prevail among these
people ? To be a Saint evidently is to be an uneducated
dolt, an intellectual pigmy, with a dwarfed intelligence and
crippled mental powers; for here is the honest concession
of what we have long contended for, that education is cal
culated to destroy the belief in popular religions and to
make men lose their faith in the teaching of the Church,
and in the creeds of the various theologies that abound in
our midst, to the intellectual hurt of the people. One dis
tinction, consequently, between Saints and Sinners lies here,
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
' 9
that the former prefer and defend ignorance and pose as the
champions of mental darkness, while the latter are the
advocates of culture, freedom, and intellectual light. Is it any
marvel that the days when the Saints were supreme in their
power over the masses were known as “ the dark ages”? Such
Saints present a striking contrast to, and cut a sorry figure
in the presence of, the Sinners of every-day life. Lord
Beaconsfield, once speaking on the subject of Darwinism—
which clearly he did not thoroughly understand—contrasted
the theory of the descent of man from monkeys with the
hypothesis of finding his parentage in angels, and added,
“ I am on the side of the angels.” So we say, We are on
the side of the Sinners, and long may they live to rebuke
the pretensions and correct the many errors and vices of the
Saints, who have been men, as Milton puts it—
“ That practised falsehood under saintly show,
Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge.”
Protestant Saints differ very considerably from those of
the Catholic persuasion—so much so, in fact, that there are
very few points of resemblance between them ; one there is,
and that a most conspicuous one—namely, their assumption
of superiority over other people. The Protestant Saint is not
■canonised after death by his Church ; he canonises himself
during life. His infallible authority he finds not in popes,
cardinals, and priestly conclaves, but between the covers of
a book and in theological creeds; and the source of his
inspiration is not a visible Church, but what is termed the
direct operation of the spirit of God upon his own mind.
Hence he judges individually his own claims of saintship
and decides for himself whether he is a Saint or not, indepen
dently of any external authority. This, to say the least of it,
produces a good deal of confusion, because the claims of
one are not unfrequently denied by another. With some
the whole question resolves itself into election from all
eternity, according to the purpose of God, quite apart from
any merits or demerits of the person so chosen. Persons
sharing this view consider that the Almighty, for some reason
of his own, which to human beings appears perfectly inscrut
able, selected from before the foundation of the world
certain persons to be his favourites in this world, and the
inheritors of everlasting joy in the next, quite regardless of
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
their character or their acts, while he damned others to
perpetual misery, from which there is no way for them to
escape, simply because he so willed it. Mr. Spurgeon, re
ferring to this horrible doctrine—in which he is a firm
believer—tells an anecdote in one of his published sermons,
with great gusto, of an old woman, who said : “ If the Lord
had not loved me before I was born, he would never have
loved me at all; for I am sure I have done nothing since to
cause him to do so." It would not be gallant to deny that
this very pious woman formed an accurate opinion of her
own character, if a wrong one of the purposes and decrees
of her God. Unfortunately, there are some people who go
through life without doing much to deserve the love of any
one; but, too often, such persons are the victims of orthodox
delusions, and not the recipients of Nature’s ever-inspiring
affection. As a rule, they allow the usefulness of their
careers to be marred by the dreadful idea that—
“ Nothing is worth a thought beneath
But how we may escape the death
That never, never dies."
Thus the value of existence is sacrificed, and the tenderness
of humanity is blunted by the worthlessness and harsh teach
ings of theology.
This election and reprobation theory is terribly repugnant
to all human notions of goodness, and even justice. No
doubt there is a great truth underlying the doctrine of pre
destination, although it is, of course, presented in a very
false and an excessively repugnant form. It recognises the
doctrine of determinism, with which most modern philo
sophic thinkers agree. The part of it which consigns millions
of men to everlasting torture for no other reason than that
God so willed it, and that it was his divine pleasure that it
should be so, is horrible beyond description. But the great
apostle of this dogma, Jonathan Edwards, has given to the
world an exceedingly valuable work on “ The Freedom of
the Will,” which no Arminian has yet fairly answered. We
take other grounds on this question than the great Calvinistic
writer; but the conclusion at which we arrive is the same.
The will is, like all things else, an effect as well as a cause.
It certainly counts for something, indeed for much, in human
actions; but then it has itself sprung from, and is con
ditioned by, organisation, environment, and other causes
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
11
which it is powerless to control. Man’s motives do not arise
from his volition; on the contrary, they govern the will.
Manis free,of course, in a sense—-that is, he is free to act in
accordance with his desires; but these desires act indepen
dently of volition. And this is all the freedom that is
possible, and it is all that any rational person should demand.
No man wants freedom to do that which he has no inclina
tion to do, or to act contrary to his desires. His freedom
lies in his capacity to obey his impulses; but these impulses
the will has no power to create. The will is not an originat
ing cause, but itself an effect, the result of a complication
of circumstances, such as external surroundings, the con
dition of the brain, temperament, age, sex, and heredity.
To say that the will is free in the sense that Arminians hold
it to be, is to state that which is paradoxical. For, if a
person has the power to call up a desire by the will, it is
certain that some prior desire induced him to do so. What,
therefore, caused that desire ? Suppose one individual says
he wills to do a thing, and he does it: he must have had an
inclination, or he would not have thus willed and acted.
Some inclination must, therefore, precede the will, and,
clearly, the will cannot be the cause of that which precedes
itself in point of time, and to which, in fact, it owes its
existence.
But the serious difficulty which arises in reference to this
election doctrine is the fact already mentioned, that each
person is left to decide for himself as to his being a Saint
or a Sinner, and also whether he is one of the favoured ones
or not—that is, whether he belongs to the sheep or the goats.
The consequence is, that many who are elect Saints, accord
ing to their own estimation, are such characters as to lead
inevitably to the conclusion that, if God chose them before
they were born, he either did not know what sort of people
they were likely to turn out to be, or else he displayed a very
questionable taste in their election. Other good Saints deny
the whole theory of predestination, and maintain that man’s
spiritual position is the result of his own choice in accord
ance with the freedom of the will, and that, therefore,
whether he be a Saint or a Sinner is a matter of his own
individual decision, and, hence, if he remain alienated from
God and receive damnation after death, it is entirely his
own fault. But how does this idea harmonise with the
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
notion of God’s foreknowledge ? According to this doc
trine, God knows before a child is born whether it will be
saved or lost, and that knowledge renders its state certain.
If, for instance, when I was born God foreknew that I should
live and die a Sinner and be doomed to eternal perdition
after my death, then I cannot escape ; for to urge that I
can is to say that God knew and did not know at the same
time. Coleridge calls the distinction between decreeing and
permitting “ a quibble,” “ and one which is quite absurd
when applied to an omniscience and omnipotence perpetually
creative.” And Coleridge was right; for to suppose that the
“ Great Father of all ” would either doom or permit any of
his children to be doomed before they were born to ever
lasting misery, while he had the power to arrange otherwise,
is to rob him of the attribute of goodness and to charge
him with a crime that most human parents would scorn to
be guilty of. This, however, does not affect the difficulty
under consideration, which is that, according to both the
theory of predestination and that of the freedom of the
will, the individual man himself decides whether he is a
Saint or not. The evidence of saintship is internal, and
hence no one else is in a position to form an opinion with
regard to it. No Church can sit in judgment on such a
person, because he claims that the evidence—and that of
an irresistible character—lies within his own breast. The
Saints of this class are of various grades, and are very often
found disputing the claims of each other. Thus the
Mormons declare that they possess such evidence in their
own behalf, and that it is of such a nature that it cannot
be mistaken—indeed, they claim that they alone possess it,
and hence they are Saints par excellence—Latter-Day
Saints that is, the only Saints in these latter days. But
the rest of the Christian world declare this sect to be hereti
cal in the extreme, and that those who belong to it are wild
fanatics, self-deluded madmen, and, in many instances, rank
impostors. The internal evidence which, in their own case,
they deem conclusive is denied to others to be of the least
value. The Shakers are Saints by the same kind of evidence,
and it leads them to look upon all relationship of the sexes
as of the Devil, and marriage to be a snare and a curse.
The Mormons, from the same standpoint, maintain that by
polygamy alone can man attain to anything like a state of
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
13
happiness here and blessedness in the hereafter; while the
Oneida Creek community, founded by Father Noyes, also
composed of Saints the evidence of whose sainthood is
within, proclaims one of the fruits of the spirit to be pro
miscuousness in sexual matters. By some the evidence of
saintship consists in immersion, by others in keeping a
seventh-day Sabbath in opposition to the first day, and by
others in some still more trivial form or rite.
All this, to a Sinner, is a little confusing, and we become
somewhat puzzled to know what are the essential qualities
of a Saint without which he would relapse into a Sinner.
A good story is told of an old woman who said that, if you
took away her “ total depravity, you took away her religion.”
This, perhaps, is true of many besides the old woman; so
we will leave them their total depravity, and consider it one
of the essential characteristics of a Saint.
Now, we have been pretty well governed by Saints of one
kind and the other for a good many centuries, and what is
the outcome of it all ? The world is not what we would
expect it to be, considering the great pretensions of these
holy ones, and the almost perfection of character which they
claim, and the superiority to Sinners which they arrogate
to themselves. Crime abounds, immorality is found on
every hand, vice overflows the land like mighty floods that
have burst their dams and are sweeping all before them;
the old modesties and rectitudes of life frequently disappear
in these days; the sacredness of obligations is lightly
esteemed, often quite disregarded; there is an apotheosis of
sensuous—not to say sensual—pleasure, which is destructive
of the noblest part of man ; falsehood and evasion are
almost universal, hypocrisy and cunning are fashionable,
drunkenness is common, and vulgar swearing is not in
frequent ; there is ostentatious display on the part of the
rich, and grinding poverty on the part of the poor, and
chaos everywhere. An able modern Christian writer (Dr.
Halcombe), after having spoken strongly of the condition
of society as regards parents, thus proceeds to deal with
children :—“ From such parents, what children ? Often
times unwelcome visitors, hated and persecuted before birth,
neglected afterwards through ignorance, or laziness, or selfish
ness ; left as much as possible to servants or subordinates,
what can we expect ? See what little savages—what early
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SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
development of evil and vicious propensities, what cruelty
to insects and small animals, what meanness and perfidy to
each other, what bickerings, fightings, envyings, vanity, pride,
greediness, often uncorrected, unreproved; sometimes even
encouraged by parents ! Injudiciously petted, injudiciously
beaten, maltrained, maltreated, they become prodigies of
deceit and dissimulation ; unwatched, uninstructed, driven
too early to school or to low associates to be got out of the
way, they fall into revolting habits that poison the very
springs of life. What follows ? Disobedience, head-strong
passions, outrageous tempers, disrespect for parents, quarrels
and hatred of each other, false views of life, base motives,
low ambitions, concealments, hypocrisies, selfishness and
utter worldliness, and so on to manhood and womanhood,
to make husbands and wives like their parents and to beget
progeny like themselves. And for all this, after eighteen
centuries of instruction, the Christian Church is responsible.”
This is strong Christian testimony as to the nature of a
Church founded, regulated, and controlled by Saints. What
picture of the domain of Sinners can be correctly drawn
which shall surpass the above confession in all the weak
nesses and vices of a debased and degraded humanity?
Evidently saintship is no guarantee for virtue and no protec
tion against the evils that too frequently blight the happiness
and nobility of man. Of these Saints we may say with
Ophelia:—
“ Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven ;
While, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads.”
But the classification into Catholic Saints and Protestant
Saints is, after all, a broad division into two great parties,
and each of these comprises within itself quite a number
of varieties. There is the melancholy Saint, who rolls up
the whites of his eyes, pulls an exceedingly long and solemn
lace, eschews smiles, hates levity, denounces a good hearty
faugh as a sound issuing from the bottomless pit, fit only to
be indulged in by madmen or fiends. His countenance
looks as sour as a crab-apple, his nose points up to heaven,
he is knock-kneed and intred, has a big abdomen and small
legs, and never looks you in the face while speaking to you.
His favourite text, which he never tires of quoting, is, “ Man
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
15
is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards ” (a very curious
simile, by the way; for sparks do not always fly upwards,
and, if they did, the relationship between them doing so
and trouble is not easy to discover); and when he sings it
is, in the most hollow and sepulchral tone, the cheerful words
of John Wesley :—
“No room for mirth or trifling here,
For worldly hope or worldly fear,
If life so soon be gone.”
Just fancy, when one hears those words drawled out as a
Methodist of the old school alone can give them forth, what
an impression it must make upon the Sinner as to the happy
influence of saintly profession ! The fact is that, so far as
the pious singer is concerned, life might as well not have
been at all, and that the sooner it “ is gone ” the better
will it be for his comfort. In this merry, laughing world he
is clearly out of place, and could well be spared from the
busy haunts of men. The prattle of little children and
their frolicsome romps are, to him, the inductions of original
sin ; and the bleatings of lambs and their gambols while at
play only show the necessity for the butcher to bring about
that condition in which the addition of mint sauce will be
agreeable to the epicure. This kind of Saint abhors a joke,
calls a pun a miserable perversion of the meaning of words,
hyperbole lying, metaphor absurd, and fiction the quint
essence of falsehood. He says he belongs to the “ little
flock,” which is a blessing for which we cannot feel too
grateful; for a big flock composed of such as he would
make life intolerable to everybody outside their fold. He
has no abiding city here, which is a mercy; and he seeks
a home in the skies, although he never seems anxious to
reach it, but stays in this world as long as possible, a trouble
to himself and a nuisance to all with whom he comes in
■contact. He delights to picture a heaven beyond the skies ;
but “distance lends enchantment to the view.” He is serious
while other men laugh, and solemn while they are joyous.
He is akin to those ancestors of ours pictured by Charles
Lamb, who lived before candles came into general use, and
who, when a joke was cracked in the dark, had to feel
around for the smile. In his case, however, there would be
no smile to feel for, inasmuch as the Saint exclaims : “ Woe
�16
SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
unto you who laugh;” “Blessed are they that mourn;”
“ Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your
joy into heaviness.” One writer says that laziness begets
laughter; but in this Saint’s case it produces the very opposite
effect. He is lazy and grim at the same time, robbing life
of its beauty and rapture, and ignoring the possible brilliancy
of Time to the gloomy anticipations of Eternity. In the
language of Byron, he lives and acts—
“ In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.”
Then there is the zealous Saint, who bores friends and
enemies alike about the salvation of his immortal soul. This
man is generally fat, greasy, and extremely homely; his nose
is as red as a signal light on a railway, and his eyes resemble
two gimlet holes bored in a huge turnip. He is, as a rule,
quite innocent of grammar in his speech, of good behaviour
in his manners, and seems to keep hell-fire constantly before
his eyes. He drawls in his speech, and addresses you in a
soft familiar tone as “ dear friend,” while his rude and ob
trusive conduct would suggest that he was one of your most
objectionable enemies. He professes to be more interested
in the state of your soul than of all else on earth, and tells
you that, unless you pass through a change akin to some
theological legerdemain process, you will assuredly be
damned. He rejoices in proclaiming, “ I tell ye nay ; but,
except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” He pesters
the life out of those who are unfortunate enough to be his
victims, with his cant jargon, with the bundle of leaflets that
he carries in his hands for distribution, and with his warnings
to flee from the “ wrath to come,” till one almost thinks that
damnation after all would be a relief to escape him. He
informs you that this world “ is a vale of tears,” and that all
sublunary things will speedily pass away, which certainly
would be “ a consummation devoutly to be wished ” if he
were included in the departure. It is very difficult to escape
from this Saint. He buttonholes you in the street, on the
railway or street car, and at your ordinary occupation. He
has made up his mind to convert you, and he leaves no
stone unturned whereby he can accomplish his purpose.
He tells you that he prays for you night and day, and you may
consider yourself lucky if he do not go down on his knees
and prey upon your patience right there. He is simply a
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
17
theological bore, who sacrifices reason to passion, good taste
to fanaticism, and common sense to orthodox stupidity.
Then there is the oily Saint, whose words are smooth and
soft, and who is very unctuous in his manners, the extreme
of affability. He tells you that his soul is full of love for
all mankind, that the very worst of them have his sympathy,
and that the cardinal virtue is charity. This Saint is lean
and threadbare, and will probably end his interview by
asking for the loan of five dollars or a gift to some mission
ary cause, never omitting to add that “ God loveth a cheerful
giver,” and “ He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto
the Lord.” And, above all, he is particularly anxious to
remind you of the words of “ our blessed Master,” “ Lend,
hoping for nothing again.” This Saint is much more likely
to take persons off their guard than any of the others, for
he overflows with honeyed words and suave manners. This
is the man that all should be especially aware off; his arts
are duplicity and deception, and he lives in the very slime
of hypocrisy, the very goodness of his nature being counter
acted by the evil influence of pious extravagance and ortho
dox cant. There are other Saints, such as the noisy Saint,
the upstart Saint of the noisy Pecksnifiian descent, the Saint
of dudist manners, the holy Saint who boasts that he has
not sinned for forty years, and the female Saint, who is, of
course, the most dangerous type of all, in consequence of
the persistent fascination of her sex and her natural influ
ence over the majority of men. Then there is a genus who
describe themselves as half Saint and half Sinner—“Plymouth
Brethren ” they are termed in England. They hold that,
while the lower part of their human nature may sin, the
higher portion remains quite holy, and thus the Saint and
Sinner are combined in one person. It is not necessary to
discuss these people, because to recognise them will be to
spoil the classification of mankind into Saints and Sinners.
There is one interesting question, however, which may occur
to some minds in connection with these half-and-half people,
which is, What will happen to the upper side of their natures
if the devil gets the lower side ? That, perhaps, is a mystery
which no Agnostic should attempt to solve. Enough has
here been said to indicate the nature of the various kinds of
Saints that abound in our midst; probably there is a place
for them in the economy of nature; but in the domestic
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
■circle and in spheres of public usefulness, private purity,
moral culture, intellectual advancement, national freedom,
and individual liberty, they have failed to do that which
would entitle them to the sympathies of a free and enlight
ened generation. Their natures have been, and are, so
contradictory, their conduct so inconsistent, their actions so
detrimental to the well-being of society, that one is justified
in saying, when thinking of most of them : “ I have thought
some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made
them well—they imitated humanity so abominably.”
Coming to the consideration of Sinners, it may be asked,
What is a Sinner ? In the regular service of the Church of
England, which the devotees of that form of religion go
through every Sunday, generally twice, each person confesses
that he has “left undone the things which he ought to have
done and done the things which he ought not to have done.”
This continual acknowledgment of misdoing is not very
complimentary to the faith which is supposed to influence
the conduct of the wrong-doers. By the way, what a pecu
liar predicament such worshippers w’ould be placed in sup
posing that, in some one week, they had, by an extraordinary
■effort, or by having been placed in very favourable circum
stances, or by both combined, done what they ought to do,
and not done what they ought not to do, then the following
Sunday the repetition of these words would really be lying,
and, what is worse from their point of view, lying to their
•God—that is, if the confession be addressed to him, rather
than intended for the ears of the rest of the congregation.
In such a case what is to be done ? The words are there,
and must be repeated. Is it not, therefore, necessary for
the people to do wrong on the week-day in order that they
may speak the truth on the Sunday? They then add,
“ There is no health in us,” and go on to pray, “ Have
mercy upon us miserable sinners ”—or t! offenders,” which
means the same thing. The word “ health ” here has refer
ence, no doubt, to “ spiritual ” health, for the entire congre
gation could scarcely be said to be suffering from some
physical disease. Indeed, it is well enough known that
“ health” and “ holiness ” are really identical in their signi
fication, having the same derivation, as originally they had
the same meaning. Health is harmony; disease is discord,
whether of body or mind. “ Without artificial medicament
�SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
19
of philosophy,” says Carlyle, “ or tight-lacing of creeds
(always very questionable), the healthy soul discerns what
is good and adheres to it and retains it, discerns what is
bad and spontaneously casts it off. An instinct from Nature
herself, like that which guides the wild animals of the forest
to their food, shows him what he shall do and what he shall
abstain from. The false and the fantastic will not adhere
to him; cant and all diseased incrustations are impossible.”
The man, therefore, who really feels that there is no health
in him confesses himself to be out of harmony with law, an
abnormal product in the universe, a morbid accretion on
the fair face of Nature, a diseased and withered branch on
the tree of life. Such a confession may be fitly indulged in
for once when the discovery is made; but to be always
doing it is the height of religious folly. For, if there is an
intention to put matters right, why is it not done ? if no
such intention, then why not cease canting about it ? Well
may such persons call themselves “miserable sinners,” for
miserable they can hardly help being while they remain at
variance with law and order, and are everlastingly lamenting
that they are so, and yet make no attempt to amend matters.
If we take these people at their own estimate, they are
offended, which shows that the confession so glibly made
week after week is insincere, to say the least of it—in fact,
it is what they themselves would call in others rank hypo
crisy. A story is told of John Wesley to the effect that an
old woman went to the great preacher and said : “ Oh, Mr.
Wesley, I am a dreadful sinner.” Wesley replied : “Yes,
Maam.” She repeated : “ I am an awful sinner.” Wesley
nodded assent. “You have no idea,” she continued, “ how
bad I am: I have been a terrible sinner.” “Yes,” said
Wesley, “ I can easily understand that you are very bad.”
At which the old woman glared up and said : “ Bad, Mr.
Wesley? What do you mean? I am not bad : I’ll have
you to know that I am as good as you.” Now, if you take
these people at their word, and describe them in the same
terms as they apply to themselves, it will soon be seen how
insincere their confession has been.
But what is a Sinner ? A violation of the moral law one
understands; an infringement of the laws of the land is
clear enough. But neither of these is meant when sin is
spoken of by religious persons. It means something dif-
�20
SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
ferent from both. True, it may include these; but it is
not necessarily connected with either. It is, in a theological
sense, an offence against God, and may or may not involve
any wrong to man. Or, if there should be a wrong to a
fellow being, it is not that which constitutes the most heinous
part of the sin. Sin, we are told, is the violation of law.
Well, but what law ? Not necessarily the moral law, but
some Divine law, which is supposed to be higher than any
that can spring from human authority. The questions here
suggest themselves, What is this alleged Divine law, and
can it be known to man ? If it can be known, why has not
an intelligent application of it been given to the world ?
On the other hand, if we are ignorant of its nature,
how can it be acted upon ? Theology teaches that the
human race became Sinners in consequence of the sin of
Adam and Eve. But admitting, pro tem., the theory in
Genesis to be true, was any sin committed by those primitive
progenitors ? Samuel Taylor Coleridge says : “ Sin must
be a state originant in the will of the actor, entirely indepen
dent of circumstances extrinsic to that will.” The Bible,
however, records three circumstances over which Adam and
Eve could have had no control—namely, the fruit which
was “pleasant to the eyes,” the desire to partake of the fruit,
and the serpent which tempted the woman to eat that which
was “good for food.” Is an act upon the part of a person
sinful if he or she is compelled to perform it ? Besides, this
act in the Garden of Eden was intended by God either to
be performed or not. If he intended it, there could be no
sin ; while, if he did not intend it, he being omnipotent, man
could not do it in spite of him. It is no answer to say,
“ God permitted it.” A God all good could not sin, and to
give man permission to sin would be admitting that a finite
being could do more than an infinite being, and also that
which he (the infinite being) was incapable of accomplishing.
Religious opinions have everywhere in the past influenced
men’s minds on the questions of morality and what should
form the basis of ethical codes. No one will deny the fact
that the conceptions formed of God will depend largely upon
the characteristics of the people among whom the concep
tions are formed. The gods of savages sirhply reflect the
feelings and ideas of the race where the god belief obtains.
They are cruel, brutal, revengeful, and licentious, according
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
21
to the characters of the worshippers; and the methods re
sorted to for appeasing them will be just those by which the
worshipper would like himself to be approached, and which
would afford him some sort of gratification. In Greece
graceful harmony, beauty, and the highest development of
art were personified in its mythology. As character and
culture became elevated, the conception of God becomes
more lofty. The different views of God which obtain have
modified the conception formed of offences against God—in
other words, sin.
The moral law has often been moulded by the religious
conception. In ancient Egypt so great a crime was it con
sidered to kill an ibis that whoever did so was put to death.
The Spartans were encouraged to steal, it being thought quite
moral to do so. Falsehood and deceit were deemed praise
worthy among the members of the early Christian Church.
In fact, lying was regarded as a virtue if it were indulged in
for pious purposes ; and St. Paul evidently justified such
acts. Even to-day lying is deemed to be no sin among some
people—the Chinese, for instance. Hundreds of other cases
of a similar kind might be given; but these will suffice to
show that the conception of sin among one people is the
reverse of what we meet with in another.
It will now be apparent that, in the conventional sense in
which the word “ sin ” is employed, it may be completely
dissevered from vice or immorality. Two sets of duties are
recognised by religious persons : one relating to God and
the other to man. The neglect of the first class is sin, the
omission of the other vice. As before stated, the latter are
largely influenced by the former ; but still it is the violation
of the law arising out of the former that constitutes sin, and
the sinner is he who is guilty of such violation. We have,
therefore, a class of acts which are right or wrong, indepen
dent altogether of any sort of relationship that they may
sustain, apart from theology, to mankind, and these acts
will be deemed sinful or holy in proportion as they fulfil
certain religious conditions. For example, a man planting a
few flowers in his garden on Sunday would be held in
Canada and Scotland to be guilty of a grave offence against
God, although .he had not in any way injured his fellow man,
or in the smallest degree violated any moral law, except such
as was supposed to be involved in the religious code.
�22
SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
The disseverance of the moral and religious duties is
not so marked to-day as in the past, simply because religion,
as a distinct thing, is less recognised. The intelligent
preacher of the present time—at least among the Protestants
and outside the ultra-orthodox party—devotes himself to
expounding moral duties and enforcing such acts of conduct
as, whatever their relationship may be to a future world,
have very much to do with the life here. But in the past’
and even now among Roman Catholics and the extreme
orthodox party, the religious duties greatly exceed the moral
ones, and hence sin is more common than immorality, and
the Sinner, consequently, much more conspicuous than the
vicious man.
By these facts we are able to judge whether Saints or
Sinners make the more useful members of Society, and,
judged of from a human standpoint, which are the better
adapted to the world in which we live. Whether the Saints
are more eligible for heaven is another matter. If they
are, should they not make the best of their way thither ?
Many of them on this earth are clearly out of place. The
Sinner—that is, the man whose sin is only of the theological
kind—may not be fit for heaven ; that region he knows not
of; but on earth there is plenty of room for him and ample
need for his presence. When, in the fulness of his heart
and the wide sympathy of his nature, he throws the golden
beams of blessedness into a sorrowing and distressed home,
sacrificing little comforts himself in order to help his fellows,
making the countenances of the sick, the poor, and the
suffering light up with a smile of sunshine, where before
darkness and gloom had reigned supreme, is he not fulfilling
the highest destiny of man, Sinner though he be ? Religion,
by her most ardent disciples, is portrayed in dark and gloomy
colours, as if we had no right to enjoy the beauty and
tenderness of the lower world—as if the deepest and purest
affections of the heart were unhallowed and unholy ; whereas
one feels that the noblest and best endeavour should be to
delight in the soft mellow light of love in which float all
things good and fair. To do this is reserved for the Sinner,
irrespective of any saintly influence. Religion may have a
place in the world; but it must not usurp, the throne of
man’s affections, the holiest part of his nature. We will
not bow suppliantly to any altar if it is to rob those we love
�SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
2S
of our heart’s warmest devotion, to taint the loveliness of
moral greatness and dim the blaze of unsanctified genius.
Our love for parent, wife, and children, and, after them, all
the human race, must be paramount in our breasts, though
we be counted Sinners ten times over. Man is man, and
not a religious machine. Too often the Saint lowers ’him
self and then scoffs at and derides those who dare to be
themselves. Let him scoff on. With our feet on the earth,
and our eyes on the stars, we proclaim mankind sublimer
than all else in beauty and magnificence. The world has
ever yearned for a full realisation of love to man and woman.
The great heart of Humanity has sent forth its longings and
aspirations, and these have often returned desolate and dis
appointed. Priests, temples, and altars have stood in the
way of the world’s improvement. Again and again has the
music of Nature’s better being burst forth. Saints have
whined over the decadence of the race, and the song of
beauty has been hushed in the wailing of those who should
have been first and foremost in the great work of human
amelioration. -But the manifestations will return and burn
brighter each time—more brightly than the flame of the
altars of Zoroaster or the sacrificial fires of the Jewish priest
hood.
Orthodoxy designates all men Sinners who have not been
“born again,” and condemns them as the enemies to the
nobility of mankind. And yet, looking through the long
roll of the world’s greatest men, the giants of intellect,
Nature’s nobles, the world’s reformers, genius bright as the
sun, and disinterestedness of character glowing like the stars
are to be found among the Sinners of the earth. Turn over
the pages of history, and what characters shall we find
standing conspicuously forth among the loftiest of Hu
manity’s children, towering like mighty columns above the
rest? Why, those denounced by the Church as Sinners.
By whom was the mighty civilisation of Greece, the strength
and power of Rome, and the grandeur of yet earlier peoples,
from whom even Greece and Rome had much to learn—
by whom was all this accomplished ? Why, by those desig
nated Sinners. The lofty intellect of Plato, throwing in
some instances modern greatness into the shade, the grand
moral sublimity of Socrates, the profound thought of Aris
totle, the fiery eloquence of Demosthenes, and the subdued
�24
SAINTS OR SINNERS : WHICH ?
oratory of Pericles, the world’s greatest thinkers, at whose
feet the scholars of to-day are content to sit ; poets, sages,
philosophers, whose writings transcend all that the world
had seen before or witnessed since, were all Sinners accord
ing to the dictum of orthodoxy. That marvellous strength
of will which made Rome the mistress of the world, which
enabled that great empire to spread itself over the civilised
globe,^holding in its hands the destiny of peoples and the
fate of nations, whose sons shed an eternal lustre on their
age and achieved an immortality of reputation lasting as long
as humanity itself—all these heroic acts and glorious deeds
are associated with Sinners, not Saints of the Church. Even
in more modern lands we discover the names of illustrious
Sinners adorning the pages of history. Some unbelievers
or doubters of Christian dogmas, some indifferent to all
theology, others advanced thinkers of the Deistical, Uni
tarian, and Agnostic type ; but all Sinners from the orthodox
standpoint. From Roger Bacon to Spencer in philosophy,
from Priestley to Tyndall in science, and from Lucretius
to Walt Whitman in poetry—these, with others of their type,
have been denounced as Sinners ; yet, but for the transcen
dent achievements of such men, we should in all probability
have now been groping in mental darkness and the worst
kind of moral confusion, surrounded by a state of things so
truly described by Pope when he says of Superstition :—
“ She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray,
To Powers unseen, and mightier far away ;
She, from the rending earth and burning skies,
Saw gods descend and fiends infernal rise ;
Here fixed the dreadful, there the blest abodes ;
Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods :
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust,
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,
And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal then, not charity, became the guide,
And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride.”
Printed by Watts &• Co., 17, Johnson's Court, London, E.C.
�
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Saints or sinners : which?
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Saints
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‘‘Ji
¡
Lives of the Saints.
January 1.
jFeagt of tfje (Circumcision of our SLorti 3csus (Christ
S. Gaspar, one of the Magi.
S. Concord, P. M., at Spoletto, in Umbria, circ. a.d. iji.
SS. Elvan, B., and Mydwyn, in England, circ. a.d. 198.
S. Martina, Z. M., at Rome, a.d. 23g.
S. Paracodius, B. of Kenne, a.d. 239.
S. Severus, M., at Ravenna, a.d. 304.
S. Telemacus, M., at Rome, a.d. 397.
S. Fulgentius, B. C. of Ruspe, in N. Africa, a.d. 333.
S. Mochua, or Cuan, Ab. in Ireland, 6th Cent.
S. Mochua, or Cronan, Ab. of Balia, in Ireland, 6th Cent.
S. Eugendus, Ab. of Condate, in the Jura, a.d. 581.
S. Fanchea, or Fain, K Abss., of Rosairthir, in Ireland, 6th Cent.
S. Clare, Ab. of Kenne, circ. a.d. 660.
S. William, Ab. S. Benignus, at Dijon, a.d. 1031.
S. Odilo, Ab. Cluny, a.d. 1049.
THE CIRCUMCISION OF OUR LORD.
HIS festival is celebrated by the Church in order
to commemorate the obedience of our Lord in
fulfilling all righteousness, which is one branch
I of the meritorious cause of our redemption, and
by that means abrogating the severe injunctions of the
Mosaic law, and placing us under the grace of the Gospel.
God gave to Abraham the command to circumcise all
male children on the eighth day after birth, and this rite was
to be the seal of covenant with Him, a token that, through
shedding of the blood of One to come, remission of the
original sin inherited from Adam could alone be obtained.
VOL. I.
X
�2
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
It was also to point out that the Jews were cut off, and
separate, from the other nations. By circumcision a Jew
belonged to the covenant, was consecrated to the service
of God, and undertook to believe the truths revealed by
Him to His elect people, and to hold the commandments to
which He required obedience. Thus this outward sign
admitted him to true worship of God, true knowledge of
God, and true obedience to God’s moral law. Circumcision
looked forward to Christ, who, by His blood, remits sin.
Consequently as a rite pointing to Him who was to come,
it is abolished, and its place is taken by baptism, which also
is a sign of covenant with God, admitting to true worship,
true knowledge, and true obedience. But baptism is more
than a covenant, and therefore more than was circumcision.
It is a sacrament, that is, a channel of grace. By baptism,
supernatural power, or grace, is given to the child, whereby
it obtains that which by nature it could not have. Cir
cumcision admitted to covenant, but conferred no grace.
Baptism admits to covenant and confers grace. By circum
cision a child was made a member of God’s own peculiar
people. By baptism the same is done, but God’s own
people is now not one nation, but the whole Catholic Church.
Christ underwent circumcision, not because He had inherited
the sin of Adam, but because He came to fulfil all righteous
ness, to accomplish the law, and for the letter to give the
spirit.
It was, probably, the extravagancies committed among the
heathen at the Kalends of January, upon which this day fell,
that hindered the Church for some ages from proposing it as
an universal set festival. The writings of the Fathers are full
of invectives against the idolatrous profanations of this day,
which concluded the riotous feasts in honour of Saturn, and
was dedicated to Janus and Strena, or Strenua, a goddess
supposed to preside over those presents which were sent to
�January i.J
S.
Concord.
3
and received from, one another on the first day of the year,
and which were called after her, strenae ; a name which is
still preserved in the etrennes or gifts, which it is customary
in France to make on New Year’s Day.
But, when the danger of the heathen abuses was removed
by the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire,
this festival began to be observed; and the mystery of our
Blessed Lord’s Circumcision is explained in several ancient
homilies of the fifth century. It was, however, spoken of in
earlier times, as the Octave of the Nativity, and the earliest
mention of it as the Circumcision is towards the end of the
eleventh century, shortly before the time of S. Bernard, who
also has a sermon upon it. In the Ambrosian Missal, used
at Milan, the services of the day contain special cautions
against idolatry. In a Gallican Lectionary, which is sup
posed to be as old as the seventh century, are special lessons
“ In Circumcisione Domini.” Ivo, of Chartres, in 1090,
speaks of the observance of this day in the French Church.
The Greek Church also has a special commemoration of the
Circumcision.
S. CONCORD, P. M.
(about 175.)
[S. Concord is mentioned in all the Latin Martyrologies. His.festival is
celebrated at Bispal, in the diocese of Gerona, in Spain, where his body
is said to be preserved, on the 2nd January. His translation is com
memorated on the 4th July. The following is an abridgment of his
genuine Acts.]
In the reign of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, there raged
a violent persecution in the city of Rome. At that time
there dwelt in Rome a subdeacon named Concordius, whose
father was priest of S. Pastor’s, Cordianus by name. Con
cord was brought up by his father in the fear of God, and in
�4
Lives of the Saints.
[Januiry f.
the study of Holy Scripture, and he was consecrated sub
deacon by S. Pius, Bishop of Rome. Concord and his father
fasted and prayed, and served the Lord instantly in the per
son of His poor. When the persecution waxed sore, said
Concord to his father, “ My lord, send me away, I pray thee,
to S. Eutyches, that I may dwell with him a few days until
this tyranny be overpast.” His father answered, “ My son,
it is better to stay here that we may be crowned.” But
Concord said, “ Let me go that I may be crowned where
Christ shall bid me be crowned.” Then his father sent him
away, and Eutyches received him with great joy. With him
Concord dwelt for a season, fervent in prayer. And many
sick came to them, and were healed in the name of Jesus
Christ.
Then, hearing the fame of them, Torquatus, governor of
Umbria, residing at Spoletto, sent and had Concord brought
before him. To him he said, “ What is thy name ?” He
answered, “ I am a Christian.” Then said the Governor,
“ I asked concerning thee, and not about thy Christ.” S.
Concord replied, “ I have said that I am a Christian, and
Christ I confess.” The Governor ordered : “ Sacrifice to
the immortal gods, and I will be to thee a father, and will
obtain for thee favour at the hands of the Emperor, and he
will exalt thee to be priest of the gods.” S. Concord said,
“ Harken unto me and sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ, and
thou shalt escape eternal misery.” Then the Governor ordered
him to be beaten with clubs and to be cast into prison.
Then, at night, there came to him the blessed Eutyches,
with S. Anthymius, the bishop ; for Anthymius was a friend
of the Governor; and he obtained permission of Torquatus
to take Concord home with him for a few days. And
during these days he ordained him priest, and they watched
together in prayer.
And after a time, the Governor sent and brought him
�January i.J
5S.
Elvan and Mydvuyn.
5
before him once more and said to him, “What has thou
decided on, for thy salvation ?” Then Concord said,
“ Christ is my salvation, to whom daily I offer the sacrifice
of praise.” Then he was condemned to be hung upon the
little horse, and with a glad countenance he cried, “ Glory
be to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ 1”
After this torment he was cast into prison; with irons on
his hands and neck. And blessed Concord began to sing
praise to God in his dungeon, and he said, “ Glory be to
God on high, and in earth peace to men of good will.”
Then, that same night, the angel of the Lord stood by him
and said, “ Fear not to play the man, I shall be with thee.”
And when three days had passed, the Governor sent two
of his officers at night to him with a small image of Jupiter.
And they said, “ Hear what the Governor has ordered,
sacrifice to Jupiter or lose thy head.” Then the blessed
Concord spat in the face of the idol, and said, “ Glory be
to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ.” Then one of the officers
smote off his head in the prison. Afterwards two clerks and
certain religious men carried away his body and buried it not
far from the city of Spoletto, where many waters flow forth.
SS. ELVAN AND MYDWYN.
(about 198.)
[Mentioned in English Martyrologies, and by Ferrarius in his General
Catalogue of the Saints. The evidence for these Saints is purely tradi
tional ; the first written record of them was by Gildas, A.D. 560, but his
account is lost. It is referred to by Matthew of Westminster.]
Saint Elvan, of Avalon, or Glastonbury, was brought up
in that school erroneously said to have been founded by
S. Joseph of Arimathea. He vehemently preached the truth
before Lucius, a British king, and was mightily assisted by
�6
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
S. Mydwyn of Wales (Meduinus), a man of great learning.
Lucius despatched Elvan and Mydwyn to Rome, on an
embassy to Pope Eleutherius, in 179, who consecrated Elvan
bishop, and appointed Mydwyn teacher. He gave them as
companions, two Roman clerks, Faganus and Deruvianus, or
according to some, Fugatius and Damianus. They retumecL
with these to King Lucius, who was obedient to the word of
God, and received baptism along with many of his princes
and nobles. Elvan became the second archbishop of
London. He and, Mydwyn were buried at Avalon. S.
Patrick is said to have found there an ancient account of the
acts of the Apostles, and of Fugatius and Damianus, written
by the hand of S. Mydwyn. Matthew of Westminster
gives the following account of the conversion of Lucius,
under the year 185 :—About the same time, Lucius, king
of the Britons, directed letters to Eleutherius, entreating him.
that he would mak.e him a Christian. And the blessed:
pontiff, having ascertained, the devotion of the King, sent tot
him some religious teachers, .namely, Faganus and Deruvi
anus, to convert the King to Christ, and wash him in the
holy font. And when that had been done, then the dif
ferent nations ran to baptism, following the example of the
King, so that in a short time there were no infidels found in
the island.”
There is a considerable amount of exaggeration in this
account of Matthew of Westminster which must not be
passed over. Lucius is known in the Welsh Triads by the
name of Lleurwg or Lleufer Mawr, which means “ The great
Luminary,” and this has been Latinized into Lucius, from
Lux, light. He was king of a portion of South Wales
only. The Welsh authorities make no mention of the
alleged mission to Rome, though, that such a mission should
have been sent is extremely probable. Some accounts say
that Medwy and Elfan were Britons, and that Dyfan and
�January i.]
•S'.
Telemachus.
7
Ffagan (Deruvianus and Faganus) were Roman priests. But
both these names are British, consequently we may conjecture
that they were of British origin, but resided then at Rome.
Four churches near Llandaf bore the names of Lleurwg
(Lucius), Dyfan, Ffagan, and Medwy, which confirms the
belief in the existence of these saints and indicates the scene
of their labours. Matthew of Westminster adds:—“ A.D. 185.
The blessed priests, Faganus and Deruvianus, returned to
Rome, and easily prevailed on the most blessed Pope that
all that they had done should be confirmed. And when it
had been, then the before-mentioned teachers returued to
Britain, with a great many more, by whose teaching the
nation of the Britons was soon founded in the faith of Christ,
and became eminent as a Christian people. And their
names and actions are found in the book that Gildas the his
torian wrote, concerning the victory of Aurelius Ambrosius.”
Geoffrey, of Monmouth, who, unsupported, is thoroughly
untrustworthy, mentions the same circumstance, on the
authority of the treatise of Gildas, now lost The embassy
to Rome shall be spoken of at length, under the title of
S. Lucius, December nth. See also Nennius, § 22 ; Bede’s
Eccles. Hist. i. 4; and the Liber Landavensis, p. 65.
S. TELEMACHUS, H. M.
(about 391.)
The following account of the martrydom of S. Telemachus
is given by Theodoret, in his Ecclesiastical History, Book v.,
chap. 26 :—“ Honorius, who had received the empire of
Europe, abolished the ancient exhibitions of gladiators
in Rome on the following occasion:—A certain man,
named Telemachus, who had embraced a monastic life,
came from the east to Rome at a time when these cruel
�8
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
spectacles were being exhibited. After gazing upon the
combat from the amphitheatre, he descended into the arena,
and tried to separate the gladiators. The bloodthirsty spec
tators, possessed by the devil, who delights in the shedding
of blood, were irritated at the interruption of their savage
sports, and stoned him who had occasioned the cessation.
On being apprised of this circumstance, the admirable
Emperor numbered him with the victorious martyrs, and
abolished these iniquitous spectacles.”
For centuries the wholesale murders of the gladiatorial
shows had lasted through the Roman empire. Human
beings in the prime of youth and health, captives or slaves,
condemned malefactors, and even free-born men, who hired
themselves out to death, had been trained to destroy each
other in the amphitheatre for the amusement, not merely of
the Roman mob, but of the Roman ladies. - Thousands,
sometimes in a single day, had been
•* Butchered to make a Roman holiday.”
The training of gladiators had become a science. By their
weapons and their armour, and their modes of fighting, they
had been distinguished into regular classes, of which the
antiquaries count up full eighteen : Andabatae, who wore hel
mets without any opening for the eyes, so that they were
obliged to fight blindfold, and thus excited the mirth of the
spectators ; Hoplomachi, who fought in a complete. suit of
armour; Mirmillones, who had the image of a fish upon
their helmets, and fought in armour with a short sword,
matched usually against the Retiarii, who fought without
armour, and whose weapons were a casting-net and a
trident. These and other species of fighters, were drilled
and fed in “ families ” by lanistse, or regular trainers, who
let them out to persons wishing to exhibit a show. Women,
even high-born ladies, had been seized in former times with
�January i.J
S., Telemachus.
9
the madness of fighting, and, as shameless as cruel, had gone
down into the arena, to delight with their own wounds and
their own gore the eyes of the Roman people.
And these things were done, and done too often under
the auspices of the gods, and at their most sacred festivals.
So deliberate and organized a system of wholesale butchery
has never perhaps existed on this earth before or since, not
even in the worship of those Mexican gods whose idols
Cortez and his soldiers found fed with human hearts, and
the walls of their temples crusted with human gore. Gradu
ally the spirit of the Gospel had been triumphing over this
abomination. Ever since the time of Tertullian, in the
second century, Christian preachers and writers had lifted
up their voice in the name of humanity. Towards the end
of the third century, the.emperors themselves had so far
yielded to the voice of reason, as to forbid by edicts the
gladiatorial fights. But the public opinion of the mob in
most of the great cities had been too strong both for saints
and for emperors. S. Augustine himself tells us of the hor
rible joy which he, in his youth, had seen come over the
vast ring of flushed faces at these horrid sights. The weak
Emperor Honorius bethought himself of celebrating once
more the heathen festival of the Secular Games, and form
ally to allow therein an exhibition of gladiators. But in the
midst of that show sprang down into the arena of the Colos
seum of Rome this monk Telemachus, some said from Nitria,
some from Phrygia, and with his own hands parted the com
batants in the name of Christ and God. The mob, baulked
for a moment of their pleasure, sprang on him, and stoned
him to death. But the crime was followed by a sudden re
vulsion of feeling. By an edict of the Emperor the gladia
torial sports were forbidden for ever; and the Colosseum,
thenceforth useless, crumbled slowly away into that vast
ruin which remains unto this day, purified, as men well said,
�IO
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
from the blood of tens of thousands, by the blood of one
true and noble martyr.1
S. FULGENTIUS, B. C.
(B. 468 ; D. 533.)
[Mentioned in all the Latin Martyrologies. His life was written by one
of his disciples, and addressed to his successor, Felicianus. Many of his
writings are extant.J
Fulgentius belonged to an honourable senatorial family
of Carthage, which had, however, lost its position with the
invasion of the Vandals into Northern Africa. His father,
Claudius, who had been unjustly deprived of his house in
Carthage to give it to the Arian priest, -retired to an estate
belonging to him at Telepte, a city of the province of Byzacene. And here, about thirty years after the barbarians had
dismembered Africa from the Roman empire, in the year 468,
was born Fulgentius. Shortly after this his father died, and
the education of the child devolved wholly on his mother,
Mariana. It has been often observed that great men have
had great mothers. Mariana was a woman of singular intelli
gence and piety. She carefully taught her son to speak Greek
with ease and good accent, and made him learn by heart
Homer, Menander, and other famous poets of antiquity. At
the same time she did not neglect his religious education, and
the youth grew up obedient and modest. She early com
mitted to him the government of the house and servants
and estate, and his prudence in these matters made his
reputation early, and he was appointed procurator of the
province.
But it was not long before he grew weary of the world ;
and the love of God drew him on into other paths. He
1 The Hermits, by Rev. C. Kingsley, p. 1J3, 1J4,
�January i.J
»S'.
Fulgentius.
11
found great delight in religious reading, and gave more time
to prayer. He was in the habit of frequenting monasteries,
and he much wondered to see in the monks no signs of
weariness, though they were deprived of all the relaxations
and pleasufes which the world provides. Then, under the
excuse that his labours of office required that he should take
occasional repose, he retired at intervals from business, and
devoted himself to prayer and meditation, and reduced the
abundance of food with which he was served. At length,
moved by a sermon of S. Augustine on the thirty-sixth
Psalm, he resolved on embracing the religious life.
There was at that time a certain bishop, Faustus by name,
who had been driven, together with other orthodox bishops,
from their sees, by Huneric, the Arian king. Faustus had
erected a monastery in Byzacene. To him Fulgentius be
took himself, and asked to be admitted into the monastery.
But the bishop repelled him saying, “Why, my son, dost
thou seek to deceive the servants of God ? Then wilt thou
be a monk when thou hast learned to despise luxurious food
and sumptuous array. Live as a layman less delicately, and
then I shall believe in thy vocation.” But the young man
caught the hand of him who urged him to depart, and
kissing it said, “ He who gave the desire, is mighty to en
able me to fulfil it. Suffer me to tread in thy footsteps, my
father !” Then with much hesitation Faustus suffered the
youth to remain, saying, “ Perhaps my fears are unfounded.
Thou must be* proved some days.”
The news that Ftilgentius had become a monk spread far
and wide. His mother, in transports of grief, ran to the
monastery, crying out, “ Faustus ! restore to me my son,
and to the people their governor. The Church always pro
tects widows ; why then dost thou rob me, a desolate widow,
of my child?” Faustus in vain endeavoured to calm her.
She desired to see her son, but he refused to give permis
�12
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
sion. Fulgentius, from within, could hear his mother’s-cries.
This was to him a severe temptation, for he loved her
dearly.
Shortly after, he made over his estate to his mother, to be
discretionally disposed of, by her, in favour of his brother
Claudius, when he should arrive at a proper age. He
practised severe mortification of his appetite, totally abstain
ing from oil and everything savoury, and his fasting produced
a severe illness, from which, however, he recovered, and his
constitution adapted itself to his life of abstinence.
Persecution again breaking out, Faustus was obliged to
leave his monastery, and Fulgentius, at his advice, took
refuge in another, which was governed by the Abbot Felix,
who had been his friend in the world, and who became now
his brother in religion. Felix rejoiced to see his friend once
more, and he insisted on exalting him to be abbot along
with himself. Fulgentius long refused, but in vain; and
the monks were ruled by these two abbots living in holy
charity, Felix attending to the discipline and the bodily
necessities of the brethren, Fulgentius instructing them nn
the divine love. Thus they divided the authority between
them for six years, and no contradictions took place between
them ; each being always ready to comply with the will of
the other.
In the year 499, the country being ravaged by the
Numidians, the two abbots were obliged to fly to Sicca
Veneria, a city of the proconsular province of Africa. Here
they were seized by orders of an Arian priest and com
manded to be scourged. Felix, seeing the executioners
seize first on Fulgentius, exclaimed, “ Spare my brother
who is not sufficiently strong to endure your blows, lest he
die under them, and strike me instead.” Felix having
been scourged, Fulgentius was next beaten. His pupil
says, “ Blessed Fulgentius, a man of delicate body, and
�January i.J
S.
Fulgentius.
of noble birth, was scarce able to endure the pain of
the repeated blows, and, as he afterwards told us, hoping
to soothe the violence of the priest or distract it awhile
that he might recover himself a little, he cried out, ‘ I will
say something if I am permitted?” The priest ordered
the blows to cease, expecting to hear a recantation. But
Fulgentius, with much eloquence, began a narration of his
travels ; and after the priest had listened awhile, finding this
was all he was about to hear, he commanded the execu
tioners to continue their beating of Fulgentius. After that
the two abbots, naked and bruised, were driven away.
Before being brought before the Arian priest, Felix had
thrown away a few coins he possessed, and his captors not
observing this, after they were released, he and Fulgentius
returned to the spot and recovered them all again. The
Arian bishop, whose relations were acquainted with the
family of Fulgentius, was much annoyed at this proceeding
of the priest, and severely reprimanded him. He also urged
Fulgentius to bring an action against him, but the confessor
declined, partly because a Christian should never seek
revenge, partly also because he was unwilling to plead before
a bishop who denied the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ
Fulgentius resolving to visit the deserts of Egypt, renowned
for the sanctity of the solitaries who dwelt there, went on
board a ship for Alexandria, but the vessel touching at Sicily,
S. Eulalius, abbot at Syracuse, diverted him from his inten
tion, assuring him that “ a perfidious dissention had severed
this country from the communion of S. Peter. All these
monks, whose marvellous abstinence is noised abroad, have
not got with you the Sacrament of the Altar in common;”
meaning that Egypt was full of heretics. Fulgentius visited
Rome in the latter part of the year 500, during the entry of
Theodoric. “Oh,” said he, “how beautiful must the
Heavenly Jerusalem be, if earthly Rome be so glorious.” A
�;4
Lives of the Saints.
uanuvyi.
short time after, Fulgentius returned home, and built himself
a cell on the sea-shore, where he spent his time in prayer,
reading and writing, and in making mats and umbrellas
of palml eaves.
At this time the Vandal heretic, King Thrasimund, having
forbidden the consecration of Catholic bishops, many sees
were destitute of pastors, and the faithful were reduced to
great distress. Faustus, the bishop, had ordained Fulgentius
priest, on his return to Byzacene, and now, many places de
manded him as their bishop. Fulgentius, fearing this re
sponsibility, hid himself; but in a time of such, trial and
difficulty the Lord had need of him, and He called him to
shepherd His flock in a marvellous manner. There was a
city named Ruspe, then destitute of a bishop, for an influen
tial deacon therein, named Felix, whose brother was a friend
of the procurator, desired the office for himself. But the
people, disapproving his ambition, made choice unanimously
of Fulgentius, of whom they knew only by report; and upon
the primate Victor, bishop of Carthage, giving, his consent
that the neighbouring bishops should consecrate him, several
people of Ruspe betook themselves to the cell of Fulgentius,
and by force compelled him to consent to be ordained.
Thus he might say, in the words of the prophet, “ A people,
whom I have not known shall serve me.”
The deacon Felix, taking advantage of the illegality of the
proceeding, determined to oppose the entrance of S. Ful
gentius by force, and occupied the road by which he pre
sumed the bishop would enter Ruspe. By some means the
people went out to meet him another way, and brought him
into the Cathedral, where he was installed, whilst the deacon
Felix was still awaiting his arrival in the road. Then he
celebrated the Divine mysteries with great solemnity, and
communicated all the people. And when Felix, the deacon,
heard this, he was abashed, and refrained from further
�January i.J
.S’.
Fulgentius.
15
opposition. Fulgentius received him with great sweetness
and charity, and afterwards ordained him priest.
As bishop, S. Fulgentius lived like a monk; he fed on the
coarsest food, and dressed himself in the plainest garb, not
wearing the orarium which it was customary for bishops to
put upon them. He would not wear a cloak (casula) of gay
colour, but one very plain, and beneath it a blackish or
milk-coloured habit (pallium) girded about him. Whatever
might be the weather, in the monastery he wore this habit
alone, and when he slept, he never loosed his girdle. “In
the tunic in which he slept, in that did he sacrifice ; he may
be said, in time of sacrifice, to have changed his heart rather
than his habit.”1
His great love for a recluse life induced him to build a
monastery near his house at Ruspe, which he designed to
place under the direction of his old friend, the Abbot Felix.
But before the building could be completed, King Thrasirtiund ordered the banishment of the Catholic bishops to
Sardinia. Accordingly S. Fulgentius and other prelates,
sixty in all, were carried into exile, and during their banish
ment they were provided yearly with provisions and money
by the liberality of Symmachus, bishop of Rome. A letter
of this Pope to them is still extant, in which he encourages
them and comforts them. S. Fulgentius, during his retire
ment, composed several treatises for the confirmation of the
faith of the orthodox in Africa. King Thrasimund, desirous
of seeing him, sent for him and appointed him lodgings iri
1 This passage has been quoted by some to show that at this period specih.1 vest
ments were not in general use for the Eucharist, as an argument against their
present use. But it must be remembered that what was immaterial at a time when
the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence were Universally believed, is mate
rial at a time when both these verities are disputed. Moreover, it by no means'
appears from the passage quoted, that Fulgentius did not wear Eucharistic vest
ments. It simply says that he wore the habit he lived and slept in, then. This is
what Monks and Friars do now, they put the vestment over the habit; that this is
what is meant by the writer, I doubt not.
�16
Ik
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
Carthage. The king drew up a set of ten objections to the
Catholic faith, and required Fulgentius to answer them.
The Saint immediately complied with his request, and his
answer had such effect, that the king, when he sent him new
objections, ordered that the answers should be read to him
self alone. He then addressed to Thrasimund a confutation
of Arianism, which we have under the title of “ Three Books
to King Thrasimund.” The prince was pleased with the
work, and granted him permission to reside at Carthage; till
upon repeated complaints from the Arian bishops of the
success of his preaching, which threatened, they said, the
total conversion of the city to the faith in the Consubstantial,
he was sent back to Sardinia, in 520. He was sent on board
one stormy night, that he might be taken away without the
knowledge of the people, but the wind being contrary, the
vessel was driven into port again in the morning, and the
news having spread that the bishop was about to be taken
from them, the people crowded to say farewell, and he was
enabled to go to a Church, celebrate, and communicate all
the faithful. Being ready to go on board when the wind
shifted, he said to a Catholic whom he saw weeping,
“Grieve not, I shall shortly return, and the true faith of
Christ will flourish again in this realm, with full liberty to
profess it; but divulge not this secret to any.”
The event confirmed the truth of the prediction. Thrasi
mund died in 523, and was succeeded by Hilderic, who gave
orders for the restoration of the orthodox bishops to their
sees, and that liberty of worship should be accorded to the
Catholics.
The ship which brought back the bishops to Cartha6e was
received with great demonstrations of joy. The pupil of
the bishop and eye-witness of the scene thus describes it:—
“ Such was the devotion of the Carthaginian citizens, desir
ing to see the blessed Fulgentius again, that all the people
�January I.]
•S'.
Fulgentius,,
*7
ardently looked for him whom they had seen wrestle so man
fully before them. The multitude which stood upon the
shore was silent in expectation as the other bishops disem
barked before him, seeking with eyes and thoughts only him
whom they had familiarly known, and eagerly expecting him
from the ship. And when his face appeared, there ¿broke
forth a huge clamour, all striving who should first salute him,
who should first bow his head to him giving the benediction,
who should deserve to touch the tips of his fingers-as he
walked, who might even catch a glimpse of him, standing
afar off. From every tongue resounded the praise of God.
Then the people going before and following after the proces
sion of the blessed confessors moved to the Church of S.
Agileus. But there was such a throng of people, especially
around Fulgentius, whO’fia they especially honoured, that a
ring had to be formed about him by the holy precaution of
the Christians, to allow him to advance upon his way.
Moreover the Lotd, desiring to prove the charity of the
faithful, marvellously poured upon them, as they moved, a
heavy shower of rain. But the heavy down-pour deterred
none of them, but seemed to be the abundant benediction
of Heaven descending on them, and it so increased their
faith, that they spread their cloaks above blessed Fulgentius,
and composed of their great love a new sort of tabernacle
over him. And the evening approaching, the company of
prelates presented themselves before Boniface, the bishop
(of Carthage) of pious memory, and all together praised and
glorified God. Then the blessed Fulgentius traversed the
streets of Carthage, visiting his friends and blessing them, he
rejoiced with them that did rejoice, and wept with them that
did weep ; and so having satisfied all their wishes, he bade
farewell to his brethren and went forth out of Carthage,
finding on all the roads people coming to meet him in the
way with lanterns, and candles, and boughs of trees, and great
2
�Lives, of the Saints.
[January I.
joy, giving praises to the ineffable God, who had wondrously
made the blessed Fulgentius well pleasing in the sight of all
men. He was received in all the Churches as if he were
their bishop, and thus the people throughout Byzacene
rejoiced as one man over his return.”
Arrived at Ruspe, S. Fulgentius diligently laboured to
correct what was evil, and restore what was fallen down,
and strengthen what was feeble in his diocese. The perse
cution had lasted seventy years, so that many abuses had
crept in, and the faith of many was feeble, and ignorance
prevailed. He carried out his reformation with such gentle
ness;. that he won, sooner or later, the hearts of the most
vicious.
In. a Council, held at Junque, in 524, a certain bishop,
name Quodvultdeus, disputed the precedency with the
bishop of Ruspe, who made no reply, but took the first
place accorded him by the council. However, S. Fulgentius
publicly desired, at the convention of another council, that
he might be allowed to yield the precedence to Quodvultdeus.
About a year before his death, the bishop retired from all
business to prepare his soul for its exit, to a little island
named Circinia. The necessities of his flock recalled him,
however, to Ruspe for a little while.
He bore the violent pains of his last illness with great
resignation, praying incessantly, “ Lord grant me patience
now, and afterwards pardon.” He called his clergy about
him, and asked them to forgive him if he had shewn too
great severity at .any. time, or had offended them in any way,
and then, committing - his soul into the hand of God as a
merciful Creator, he fell asleep in the evening of January
1st, A.D. 533, in his sixty-fifth year.
Relics, at Bourges, in France, where May 16, is observed
as the Feast of his translation, in the year 714.
�January i.J
iSL
M^OC/lUd.
19
S. MOCHUA OR CUAN.
(about 6th cent.)
[Commemorated in the ancient Irish Martyrologies on the nth April ;
probably as being the day of his translation. But he died on Jan. ist.
The life of S. Mochua, from an Irish legend in the Bollandists, is full of the
wildest fable.]
Saint Mochua was the son of a certain Cronan, of noble
race, and spent his youth in fighting. At the age of thirty,
he laid aside his arms and burnt a house with all its contents
which had been given to him by his uncle, saying that a
servant of Christ should take nothing from sinners. Then he
settled at a spot called Teach Mochua. He is said to have
healed S. Finnan, or Munnu, of leprosy, and when S. Finnan
was about to return home, and his horse broke its leg, S.
Mochua summoned a stag out of the forest to come and
draw the vehicle, in place of the horse.
In his time thé first stone Church was 'erected in Ireland
by S. Kienan, and during the building of thé • Church, there
1 fell no rain to impede the masons, for the clouds were stayed
by the prayers of S. Mochua. He is said to have founded
thirty Churches. /To assist in drawing wood from the forest to
build these Churches, Mochua called to his aid twelve stags,
which served as patiently and obediently as oxen. And
when his virtues drew to him many people and much praise,
the old man fled from place to place, for he considered that
the glory of this world would turn his heart from the glory
of the world to come. And when very aged, he escaped
,with his oratory bell into a wild and mountainous part, and
there the clapper fell to the ground, at' a place called
Dagrinnis. He was troubled in spirit, so bleak and lonely
did the place appear ; but an angel announced to him that
there he was to build a cell, and there to die ; and in this
spot he spent thirty years, and wrought many miracles, and
died in the ninety-ninth year of his age.
�20
Lives of the Saints.
[January i
It is difficult to clear the lives of many of the Irish Saints
from the fable wherewith lively imaginations have invested
them in their oral transmission through many hundreds of
years.
S. MOCHUA OR CRONAN, OF BALLA.
[The day of his death is unknown. He is here mentioned because of
the similarity of his name of that of S. Mochua, to Teach Mochua. His
life is legendary.]
Saint Mochua, or Cronan, was the third son of Began, a
man of good family. As a child he was despised by his
parents, and sent to keep sheep. But S. Congal passing by
his father’s house, called the boy to follow him, and made
him a monk. S. Mochua founded the monastery of Balia,
in Connaught. He departed to the Lord in the fifty-sixth
year of his age.
S. ODILO, AB. CLUNY.
(b. 962; d. 1049.)
[Roman Martyrology. Two lives of S. Odilo are extant, one written by
Jotsald, a monk, who had lived under his rule, and who wrote it for
Stephen, the nephew of the Saint. The other, a very inferior life, by S.
Peter Damian. Both are printed in the Bollandists, but the first is from
an imperfect MS. It was printed entire by Mabillon, Acta SS. O. S. B.J
Odilo belonged to the family of Mercoeur, one of the most
illustrious of Auvergne. Jotsald says:—“In thebeginning
of the account of his virtues I must relate what happened to
him as a boy. And lest it be thought incredible, I mention
that I heard it from those to whom he was wont to narrate
the circumstance. When he was quite a little boy in his
father’s house, before he was sent to school, he was destitute
�January I.]
•S'.
Odilo.
21
of almost all power in his limbs, so that he could not walk or
move himself without help. It happened that one day his
father’s family were moving to another place, and a nurse
was given charge of him to carry him. On her way, she put
the little boy down with her bundles before the door of a
Church dedicated to the Mother of God, as she and the
rest were obliged to go into some adjacent houses to pro
cure food. As they were some while absent, the boy find
ing himself left alone, impelled by Divine inspirations, began
to try to get to the door and enter the Church of the
Mother of God. By some means, crawling on hands and
knees, he reached it, and entered the Church, and went to
the Altar, and caught the Altar vestment with his hands;
then with all his power, stretching his hands on high, he tried
to rise, but was unable to do so, his joints having been so
long ill-united. Nevertheless, Divine power conquered,
strengthening and repairing the feeble limbs of the boy.
Thus, by the intervention of the Mother of God, he rose,
and stood upon his feet whole, and ran here and there
about the Altar. The servants returning to fetch their bun
dles, and not finding the child, were much surprised, and
looked in all directions, and not seeing him, became greatly
‘alarmed. However, by chance, entering the Church, they
saw him rambling and running about it; then they recog
nised the power of God, and joyously took the boy in their
arms, and went to their destination and gave him, com
pletely whole, to his parents, with great gladness.”
As a child, he showed singular simplicity, modesty and
piety. “ Thus passed his childish years, and as the strength
of youth began to succeed to boyhood, he silently meditated
how to desert the flesh-pots of Egypt, and to strive to
enter the Land of Promise through the trials of the world.
O good J esu ! how sweet is Thy call! how sweet the inspi
ration of Thy Spirit, which as soon as Thou strikest on the
�22
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
lieart, turns the fire of the Babylonish furnace into love of
the celestial country. Sb ! as soon as thou strikest the heart
of the,youth, thou changest it.” Whilst he was thus medita
ting, S. Majolus passed through Auvergne, and Odilo came
to him ; then the old man looking on the graceful form and
comely face of the youth, and by the instinct of the Saints
seeing into his soul, he loved him greatly ; also the youthful
Odilo felt a great affection for the aged monk. And when
they spoke to one another, Odilo opened his heart to
Majolus, and the venerable man encouraged the youth to
persevere in his good intentions.
Shortly after, Odilo left his home “as Abraham of old
went forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and sought admittance
into the Abbey of Cluny, as into the Promised Land. O
good Jesu ! how pleasant it was to see this sheep shorn of
its worldly fleece, , again ascend as from the baptismal font!
Then wearing our habit, you might have seen our sheep
amongst the others of His flock, first in work, last in place,
seeking the pastures of eternal verdure ; attending, to the
lamps, sweeping the floors, arid doing other common offices.
But the pearl could not remain long concealed. After four
years, S. Majolus, after many hard labours borne for Christ,
went out of the darkness of Egypt, entered Jerusalem, and
was placed in eternal peace by Christ. As death approached,
he chose Odilo to be his successor, and to him and to the
Lord he committed his flock.” But S. Odilo shrank from
the position for which his youth, as he considered, disquali
fied him; however, he was elected by the whole community,
and was therefore unable to refuse the office wherewith he
was invested by the vote of the brethren, and the desire of
the late Abbot.
His disciple, Jotsald, gives a very beautiful picture of his
master. He describes him as being of middle stature, with
a face beaming with grace, and full of authority; very ema-
�January i.J
S.
Odilo.
23
dated and pale ; his eyes bright and piercing, and often
shedding tears of compunction. Every motion of his body
was grave and dignified; his voice was manly, and modu
lated to the' greatest sweetness, his speech straightforward
and without affectation or artificiality.
His disciple says that he would recite psalms as he lay on
his bed, and falling asleep, his lips would still continue the
familiar words, so that the brethren applied to him the
words of the bride, “ I sleep but my heart waketh,” Ego
dormio et cor meum vigilat. He read diligently, and nothing
gave him greater delight than study. His consideration for
others was very marked. “He was burdensome to none, to
none importunate, desirous of no honour, he sought not to
get what belonged to others, nor to keep what was his own.”
His charity was most abundant, often the brethren feared
that it exceeded what was reasonable, but they found that
though he gave largely he did not waste the revenues of the
monastery. Once, in time of famine, he was riding along a
road, when he lit on the naked bodies of two poor boys
who had died of hunger. Odilo burst into tears, and des
cending from his horse, drew off his woollen under garment
and wrapping the bodies in it, carefully buried them. In this
famine he sold the costly vessels of the Sanctuary and des
poiled the Church of its gold and silver ornaments, that he
might feed the starving people. Amongst the objects thus
parted with was the crown of gold presented to the Abbey
by Henry, King of the Romans. He accompanied this
Prince in his journey to Rome, when he was crowned em
peror, in 1014. This was his second journey thither; he
made a third in 1017, and a fourth in 1022. Out of devo
tion to S. Benedict, he paid a visit to Monte Cassino, where
he kissed the feet of all the monks, at his own request,
which was granted him with great reluctance.
“ The convocation of the brethren was regularly held by
�24
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
him till he was at the point of death. 0 how joyous he was
in the midst of them, as standing in the midst of the choir,
and looking to right and left he saw the ring of young
plantings, and remembered the verse of David's song, ‘ Thy
children shall be as the olive branches round about thy
table.’ Filii tui sicut novella olivarum, in circuitu mensce
tuce. And the more the number of brothers increased, the
more he exhibited his joy of heart by signs. And when
some seemed distressed thereat, he was wont to say, Grieve
not that the flock has become great, my brothers, He who
has called us in, He governs and will provide.”
Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, called him the archangel of
monks; and the name, says his disciple, became him well.
S. Odilo, out of his great compassion for the souls of the
dead expiating the penalty of their sins in purgatory, insti
tuted the Commemoration of All Souls for the morrow of All
Saints, in the Cluniac order, which was afterwards adopted by
the whole Catholic Church in the West Many incidents of
his travels, and miracles that he wrought, are related by his
pupil. As he was riding over the Jura mountains in snowy
weather, the horse carrying his luggage fell, and was preci
pitated into the valley, and all the baggage was scattered
in the snow-drifts. With much trouble the horse and much
of the baggage were recovered, but a valuable Sacramentary,
inscribed with gilt letters, and some glass vessels, with em
bossed work, were lost That evening Odilo and his monks
arrived at a cell under the jurisdiction of S. Eugendus, and
being much troubled at his loss, as much rain fell in the
night, S. Odilo sent some of the brethren early next morn
ing to search for the lost treasures. But the snow-drifts
were so deep that they could not find them, and he was
obliged to leave without them. However, as the spring
came round, a certain priest named Ermendran, was walk
ing in the glen, and he found the book uninjured, and the
�January i.J
•S’.
Odilo.
25
glass goblets unbroken. He brought them to the cell, and
on the return of Odilo to the Jura, he received his lost
treasures intact. .
Another story of a glass vessel comes on good authority.
The circumstances were related by Albert, bishop of Como,
in these jyords, “ Once our Abbot and Superior came to the
court of the Emperor Henry, and whilst there, it happened
one day that at table a goblet of glass, of Alexandrine work
manship, very precious, with coloured enamel on it, was
placed before him. He called me and Landulf, afterwards
bishop of Turin, to him, and bade us take this glass to Odilo.
We accordingly, as the Emperor had bidden, took it, and
going to the Abbot offered it to him, on the part of the Em
peror, humbly bowing. He received it with great humility,
and told us to return after a while for the goblet again. Then,
when we had gone away, the monks, fi led with natural curi
osity to see and handle a new sort of thing, passed the
vessel from hand to hand, and as they were examining it, it
slipped through their fingers to the ground, and was broken.
When the gentle man of God was told this, he was not a
little grieved, and said, ‘ My brothers you have not done well,
for by your negligence, the young clerks who have the cus
tody of these things will, maybe, lose the favour of the
Emperor, through your fault. Now, that those who are in
nocent may not suffer for your carelessness, let us all go to
Church and ask God’s mercy about this matter.’ Therefore,
they all ran together into the Church, and sang psalms and
prayed, lest some harm should befall us—Albert and Lan
dulf, each of them earnestly supplicating God for us. When
the prayer was over, the holy man ordered the broken gob
let to be brought to him. He looked at it, and felt it, and
could find no crack or breakage in it. Wherefore, he ex
claimed indignantly, ‘What are you about brothers? You
must be blind to say that the glass is broken, when there is
�26
Lives of the Saints.
[January i.
not a sign of injury done to it.’ The brethren considering
it, were amazed at the miracle, and did not dare to speak.
Then, after a while, I and my companion came back for the
vessel, and we asked it of him who was carrying'it. He
called me apart and returned it to me, bidding me tell
the Emperor to regard it as a great treasure. And when
I asked his meaning, he told me all that had happened.”
S. Odilo seems to have been fond of art, for he rebuilt the
monasteries of his order and made them very beautiful, and
the Churches he adorned with all the costly things he could
procure.' The marble pillars for Cluny were brought by his
orders in rafts down the Durance into the Rhone, and he
was wont to say of Cluny that he found it of wood and left
it of marble. He erected over the Altar of S. Peter, in the
Church, a ciborium, whose columns were covered with
silver inlaid with nigello work.
When he felt that his death approached, he made a
circuit of all the monasteries under his sway, that he might
leave them in thorough discipline, and give them his last
admonitions. On this journey he reached Souvigny, a priory
in Bourbonnais, where he celebrated the Vigil of the Nati
vity, and preached to the people, although at the time suffer
ing great pain. After that, he announced to the brethren in
chapter, that he was drawing nigh to his end, and he besought
'their prayers. As he was too weak to go to the great Church
bf S. Peter, which was attended by the monks, he kept the
festival of the Nativity with a few brethren, whom he de
tained, to be with him in the Chapel of S. Mary, joy
ously he praecented the psalms and antiphons, and gave the
benedictions, and performed all the ceremonies of that glad
festival, forgetful of his bodily infirmities, knowing that soon
he was to see God face to face, in the land of the living,
find no more in a glass darkly. Most earnest was he, lest
death should come and find him unprepared. Throughout
�January i.]
S.
Odilo.
27
the Octave he was carried in the arms of the monks to
Church, where he assisted at the choir offices, night and
day, and at the celebration of the Mass, refreshing himself
at the sacred mysteries, and looking forward to the Feast of
the Circumcision, when his friend William, Abbot of Dijon,
had fallen asleep, on which day, he foretold he also should
enter into his rest.
On that day, carried by his brethren, he was laid before
the Altar of the Virgin Mother, and the monks sang vespers.
Now and then their voices failed through over much sor
row, and then he recited the words of the psalms they in
their trouble had omitted. As night crept in at the win
dows, he grew weaker and fainter. Then the brothers laid
sack-cloth and ashes under him, and as he was lifted in the
arms of one, brother Bernard, he asked, reviving a little,
where he was. The brother answered,1 “ On sack-cloth and
ashes.” Then he sighed forth, “ God be thanked !” and he
asked that the little children and the whole body of the
brethren might be assembled. And when all were gathered
around him, he directed his eyes to the Cross, and his lips
moved in prayer, and he died thus in prayer, gazing on the
sign of his salvation.
His body was laid in the nave cf the Church of Souvigmy,
near that of S. Majolus.
He is often represented saying mass, with purgatory open
beside the Altar, and those suffering extending their hands
to him, in allusion to his having instituted the Commemora
tion of All Souls.
�28
Lives of the Saints.
[January a.
January 2.
©rta&e of S. Stqrfjen, tfje ¿First fHartgr.
SS. Frontasius, and Companions, M. M. in Gaul.
SS. Martyrs, at Lichfield, circ. a.d. 304.
S. Isidore, B. C., in Egypt, 4th Cent.
S. Macarius, Ab. at Alexandria, a.d. 394.
S. A spas 1 us, C. at Melun, France, a. d. $50.
S. Maximus, Ab. M., in France, a.d. 6x4,
S. A DAL HARDT, Ab. of Corbie, A.D. 826.
S. Silvester, Monk of Trani, in S. Italy, a.d. 1185.
THE HOLY MARTYRS OF LICHFIELD.
(A.D. 304.)
RICHFIELD derives its name from Lyke-field,
gl the field of dead bodies, because it is tradition
al ally said, that in the persecution of Diocletian,
ij many Christians suffered there for the faith.
The arms of Lichfield are a plain strewn with corpses.
Nothing certain is known of this event
S. MACARIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, AB.
(a.d. 394.)
[There were two Macarii. Both are commemorated together by the
Greeks, on Jan. 19th ; but the Latins commemorate S. Macarius of Alex
andria, on Jan. 2nd ; and S. Macarius the Egyptian, on Jan. 15th. The
history of this S. Macarius is perfectly authentic, being written by S.
Palladius (b. 368,) in the year 421; the writer knew S. Macarius personally,
having been nine years in “thecells,” of which S. Macarius was priest. Three
of these years Macarius and Palladius lived together ; so that, as the author
says, he had every opportunity of judging of his manner of life and actions. ]
Saint Macarius, the younger, was bom in Alexandria, of
poor parents, and followed the trade of confectioner. Desir»
�January a.]
3*.
Macarius.
29
ous of serving God with his whole heart, he forsook the
world in the flower of his age, and spent upwards of sixty
years in the deserts, in the exercise of fervent penance and
prayer. He first retired into the Thebaid or Upper Egypt,
about the year 335 ; then, aiming at greater disengagement,
he descended to Lower Egypt, in or about the year 373.
Here there were three deserts almost adjoining each other;
that of Scete; that of the Cells, so called because of the
multitude of cells wherewith its rocks were honey-combed ;
and a third, which reached the western bank of the Nile,
called the Nitrian desert. S. Macarius had a cell in each
of these deserts. When he was in Nitria he gave advice to
those who sought him. But his chief residence was in the
desert of the Cells. There each hermit lived separate, as
sembling only on Saturday and Sunday, in the Church, to
celebrate the Divine Mysteries, and to partake of the Holy
Communion. All the brothers were employed at some
handicraft, generally they platted baskets or mats. All in
the burning desert was still; in their cells the hermits worked,
and prayed, and cooked their scanty victuals, till the red
ball of the sun went down behind the sandy plain to the
west, then from all that region rose a hum of voices, the
rise and fall of song, as the evening psalms and hymns were
being chanted by that great multitude of solitaries in dens
and caves of the earth.
Palladius has recorded an instance of the great self-denial
observed by these hermits. A present was made to S.
Macarius of a bunch of grapes, newly gathered. The holy
man carried it to a neighbouring solitary who was sick; he
sent it to another, and each wishing that some dear brother
should enjoy the fruit rather than himself, passed it on to
another; and thus the bunch of grapes made the circuit of
the cells, and was brought back to Macarius.
The severity of life practised by these hermits was great
�30
Lives of ike Saints.
[January 1.
For seven years together S. Macarius lived on raw herbs and
pulse, and for the three following years contented himself
with four or five ounces of bread a day. His watchings
were not less surprising. He told Palladius that it had been
his great desire to fix his mind on God alone for five days
and nights continuously. And when he supposed he was in
the proper mood, he closed his cell and stood up and said,
“Now thou hast angels and archangels and all the Heavenly
host in company with thee. Be in Heaven and forget
earthly things,” And so he continued for two nights and
days, wrapped in Heavenly contemplations, but then his
hut seemed to flame about him, even the mat on which he
stood, and his mind was diverted to earth. “ But it was as
well, said he; for I might have fallen into pride.”
The reputation of the monastery of Tabenna, under S.
Pachomius, drew him to it in disguise. S. Pachomius told
him he seemed too far advanced in years to begin to prac
tise the austerities undergone by himself and his monks;
nevertheless, on his earnest entreaty he admitted him.
Then Lent drew on, and the aged Macarius saw the monks
fasting, some two whole days, others five, some standing all
night, and sitting at their work during the day. Then he,
having soaked some palm leaves, as material for his work,
went apart into a comer, and till Easter came, he neither ate
nor drank, nor sat down, nor bowed his knee, nor lay down,
and sustained life on a few raw cabbage leaves which he ate
on Sundays ; and when he went forth for any need he
returned silently to his work, and occupied his hands in
platting, and his heart in prayer. But when the others
saw this, they were astonished, and remonstrated with S.
Pachomius, saying, “ Why hast thou brought this fleshless
man here to confound us with lais austerities. Send him
away, or we will desert this place.” Then the Abbot went to
Macarius, and asked him who he was, and when he told his
�January 3.1
S.
MaCaVlUS. ■
31
name, Pachomius was glad, and cried, “ Many years have I
desired to see thee. I thank thee that thou hast humbled
my sons; but now, go thy way, sufficiently hast thou
edified us; go, and pray for us.” Macarius, on one occa
sion, to subdue his flesh, filled two great baskets with
sand, and laying them on his shoulders, walked over the
hot desert, bowed beneath them. A friend meeting him
offered to ease him of his burden, but “ No,” said the
old hermit, “ I have to torment my tormentormeaning
his body.
One day, a gnat stung him in his cell, and he killed it
Then, ashamed .that he had allowed himself to be irritated
by the petty insect, and to have lost an opportunity of
enduring mortification with equanimity, ,he went to the
marshes of Scete, and stayed there six months, suffering
greatly from the stings of the insects. When he returned,
he was so disfigured by their bites, that he was only recog
nized by his voice.
The terrible severity with which these Egyptian hermits
punished themselves is perhaps startling, but it was some
thing needed at a time when the civilized world was sunk in
luxury, profligacy and indifference. That was a time which
called for a startling and vivid contrast to lead minds
into self-inspection. “ Private profligacy among all ranks
was such as cannot be described in any modem pages.
The clergy of the cities, though not of profligate lives, and
for the most part unmarried, were able to make no stand
against the general corruption of the age, because—at least
if we are to trust such writers as Jerome and Chrysostom—
they were giving themselves up to ambition and avarice,
intrigue and party spirit. No wonder if, in such a state of
things, the minds of men were stirred by a passion akin to
despair. It would have ended often, but for Christianity, in
such an actual despair as that which had led, in past ages,
�Lives of the Saints.
[January 3.
more than one noble Roman to slay himself, when he lost
all hope for the Republic. Christianity taught those who
despaired of society, of the world—in one word, of the
Roman empire, and all that it had done for men—to hope
at last for a Kingdom of God after death. It taught those,
who, had they been heathens and brave enough, would
have slain themselves to escape out of a world which was no
place for honest men, that the body must be^kept alive, at
least, for the sake of the immortal soul, doomed, according
to its works, to endless bliss or endless torment. But that
the world—such, at least, as they saw it then—was doomed,
scripture and their own reason taught them. They did not
merely believe, but see, in the misery and confusion, the
desolation and degradation around them, that all that was
in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and
the pride of life, was not of the Father, but of the world;
that the world was passing away, and the lust thereof, and
that only he who did the will of God could abide for ever.
They did not merely believe, but saw, that the wrath of God
was revealed from Heaven against all unrighteousness of
men; and that the world in general was treasuring up to
themselves wrath, tribulation, and anguish, against a day of
wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who
would render to every man according to his works. That
they were correct in their judgment of the world about them,
contemporary history proves abundantly. That they were
correct, likewise, in believing that some fearful judgment
was about to fall on man, is proved by the fact that it did
fall; that the first half of the fifth century saw, not only the
sack of Rome, but the conquest and desolation of the
greater part of the civilized world, amid bloodshed, misery,
and misrule, which seemed to turn Europe into a chaos,
which would have turned it into, a chaos, had there not been
a few men left who still felt it possible and necessary to
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lives of the saints
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 32 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. January 1st, January 2nd [incomplete]
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5562
Subject
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Saints
Creator
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[Unknown]
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Lives of the saints), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Saints