A Child's Book of Saints

by

William Canton

With illustrations by
T. H. Robinson

This is fairy gold, boy;
And I will prove it so.
—Shakespeare

Every man I will go with thee, be thy guide
in thy most need to go by thy side.

London
Published by J. M. Dent & Co.
and in New York by
E. P. Dutton & Co.

First Edition, March 1906.
Reprinted May 1906.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

"A Child's Book of Saints" was first published in 1898, when Mr. Canton had already found his audience. The book is a near successor indeed to his "W. V.: Her Book," and to "The Invisible Playmate"; and W. V. again acts as guardian elf and guide to this new region of the child's earthly paradise. The Saints are here treated with a simplicity that is almost or altogether childlike, and with an unforced imagination which is only to be learnt by becoming as a child. And this is perhaps why, although comparatively a new book, it has the air of something pleasantly old, and written long ago; and thus wins its way into the children's library of old favourite authors.

Mr. Canton's published works, up to January 1906, comprise:—"A Lost Epic, and other Poems," 1887. "The Invisible Playmate: a Story of the Unseen," 1894, 1897. "W. V., Her Book and Various Verses," 1896. "A Child's Book of Saints," 1898, 1902. "Children's Sayings, Edited, with a Digression on the Small People," 1900. "The True Annals of Fairyland" (The Reign of King Herla), 1900, &c. "In Memory of W. V." (Winifred Vida Canton), 1901. "The Comrades: Poems, Old and New," 1902. "What is the Bible Society?" 1903. "The Story of the Bible Society," 1904. "A History of the British and Foreign Bible Society," 1904. "Little Hands and God's Book: a Sketch of the Bible Society," 1804-1904, 1905.

Contents

IN THE FOREST OF STONE
THE SONG OF THE MINSTER
THE PILGRIM OF A NIGHT
THE ANCIENT GODS PURSUING
THE DREAM OF THE WHITE LARK
THE HERMIT OF THE PILLAR
KENACH'S LITTLE WOMAN
GOLDEN APPLES AND ROSES RED
THE SEVEN YEARS OF SEEKING
THE GUARDIANS OF THE DOOR
ON THE SHORES OF LONGING
THE CHILDREN OF SPINALUNGA
THE SIN OF THE PRINCE BISHOP
THE LITTLE BEDESMAN OF CHRIST
THE BURNING OF ABBOT SPIRIDION
THE COUNTESS ITHA
THE STORY OF THE LOST BROTHER
THE KING ORGULOUS
THE JOURNEY OF RHEINFRID
LIGHTING THE LAMPS

List of Illustrations

Women lived the life of prayer and praise and austerity and miracle

"These are the fields in which the Shepherds watched"

Hilary wondered and mused

A gaunt, dark figure, far up in the blue Asian sky

"Come not any nearer, turn thy face to the forest, and go down"

"I am not mad, most noble Sapricius"

They won their long sea-way home

"And four good Angels watch my bed, two at the foot and two the head"

And again in the keen November