GIFT-BOOKS.
A CHILD'S BOOK OF SAINTS.*
THESE are beautiful stories, excellently well told in poet's prose—not "poetical prose," a very different thing—for Mr. Canton has, when he chooses to use it, no mean accomplish- ment of verse. A chapter of preface, entitled "In the Forest of Stone," tells us how they came into being. We have to thank "W. V." for them, being already under no small obligation to the same initials for Her Book. They are stories of a world which has, in a sense, passed away. There are, it is true, cloisters still, and the cloistered life is still lived, often with austerities which match the most marvellous achieve- ments of the ages of faith, but the true spirit of the thing is no more. Saintship is not extinct, but it fulfils itself in other ways; the metal is genuine though it does not receive the stamp of canonisation. Nevertheless, it is good to go back now and again to the old times, especially when we have so wise and sympathetic a guide as the author of this Book of Saints. The echoes of the ancient service are good to hear, though they may come to us in strange ways, snob, for instance, as in this beautiful fancy,—or is it fact ?—" In
some leafy places the blackbirds and throstles had learnt to repeat some of the cadences of the church music, and in those places the birds still continue to pipe them, though nothing now remains of church or monastery save the name of some field, or street, or well." Once or twice, we think, Mr. Canton goes a little beyond the compre- hension of the audience which he has in view. "The King Orgulous," for instance, is intended to be a parable of the two men that are in every human existence, the " White Genius" and the " Black " so to speak, the man as he would be with passions uncontrolled by the Spirit of God, and the man BA discipline and grace have made him; but the tale is distinctly hard of understanding. Here our fault-finding is ended. For the most part the meaning is admirably clear. Take as an instance "The Pilgrim of a Night." A certain Isidore was wont to spend some minutes in prayer in the church before he went to his work. His fellow-labourers scoffed at him, and even accused him to the master of idleness. "True and faithful service," said the master in reproof, "is better than any prayer that could be uttered in words." "True," replied Isidore, "but they who pray have God to work with them." After this the master watched, and this is what he saw :— "In the sharp air of the autumn morning he saw this one and that one of his men sullenly following the plough behind the oxen, and taking little joy in the work. Then, as he passed on to the rising ground, he heard a lark carolling gaily in the grey sky, and in the hundred-acre where Isidore was engaged, he saw to his amazement not one plough but three turning the hoary stubble into ruddy furrows. And one plough was drawn by oxen and guided by Isidore, but the others were drawn and guided by angels of heaven." And Isidore had another experience. It was the desire of his life to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and for this purpose he painfully saved up a little store of money. When it had grown almost enough for the purpose there came to his cottage one night an aged pilgrim who was begging his way home. He had seen the Holy Places, and now he was longing to return to his kinsfolk again. "Your need," said Isidore, "is greater than mine," and gave him all his store. That night he was carried to the land of his desire, and saw every place that it had been in his heart to look upon. Only one wish was unfulfilled, to look upon the Lord himself. That, too, was granted to him. He saw the lakeside in Galilee, and the fire burning, and "fish laid thereon and bread," and the seven gazing at the Master.
In the "Hermit of the Pillar" we have the Pillar Saint sent to learn of the gooseherd, who knows nothing of these strange austerities, but has cheerfully given himself up to tenderly caring for a little child whose parents have been slain by robbers. In " Kusach's Little Woman," the Abbot, spending his Lenten fast in a cave among the hills, gives shelter to the woman and child whom the young monk would have driven away, horror-stricken at such intrusion :— "They looked up, and what was their astonishment to see a heavenly glory shining about the woman and her child in the gloom of the cave. And in his left hand the child carried a little golden image of the world, and round his • A Child's Book of Saints. By William Canton. London : J. IL Dent and Co.
head was a starry radiance, and his right hand was raised in blessing."
The illustrations have power, but we sometimes are inclined to wish that they had a little more grace.
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