he rarely filled them in with anecdote. Yet it is the little details of a man's life that give it character, and impress themselves on the memory. People forget the age and parentage of S. Gertrude, but they remember the mouse running up her staff.

A priest of the Anglican Church, I have undertaken to write a book which I hope and trust will be welcome to Roman and Anglican Catholics, alike. It would have been unseemly to have carried prejudice, impertinent to have obtruded sectarianism, into a work like this. I have been called to tread holy ground, and kneel in the midst of the great company of the blessed; and the only fitting attitude of the mind for such a place, and such society, is reverence. In reading the miracles recorded of the Saints, of which the number is infinite, the proper spirit to observe is, not doubt, but discrimination. Because much is certainly apocryphal in these accounts, we must not therefore reject what may be true. The present age, in its vehement naturalism, places itself, as it were, outside of the circle of spiritual phenomena, and is as likely to deny the supernatural agency in a marvel, as a mediæval was liable to attribute a natural phenomenon to spiritual causes. In such cases we must consider the evidence and its worth or worthlessness. It may be that, in God's dealings with men, at a time when natural means of cure were unattainable, the supernatural should abound, but that when the science of medicine became perfected, and the natural was rendered available to all, the supernatural should, to some extent, at least, be withdrawn.

Of the Martyrologies referred to, it may be as well to mention the dates of the most important. That of Ado is of the ninth century, Bede's of the eighth;[1] there are several bearing the name of S. Jerome, which differ from one another, they are forms of the ancient Roman Martyrology. The Martyrology of Notker (D. 912), of Rabanus Maurus (D. 856), of Usuardus (875), of Wandalbert (circ. 881). The general catalogue of the Saints by Ferrarius was published in 1625, the Martyrology of Maurolycus was composed in 1450, and published 1568. The modern Roman Martyrology is based on that of Usuardus. It is impossible, in the limited space available for a preface, to say all that is necessary on the various Kalendars, and Martyrologies, that exist, also on the mode in which some of the Saints have received apotheosis. Comparatively few Saints have received formal canonization at Rome; popular veneration was regarded as sufficient in the mediæval period, before order and system were introduced; thus there are many obscure Saints, famous in their own localities, and perhaps entered in the kalendar of the diocese, whose claims to their title have never been authoritatively inquired into, and decided upon. There is also great confusion in the monastic kalendars in appropriating titles to those commemorated; here a holy one is called "the Venerable," there "the Blessed," and in another "Saint." With regard also to the estimation of authorities, the notes of genuineness of the Acts of the martyrs, the tests whereby apocryphal lives and interpolations may be detected, I should have been glad to have been able to make observations. But this is a matter which there is not space to enter upon here.

The author cannot dismiss the work without expressing a hope that it may be found to meet a want which he believes has long been felt; for English literature is sadly deficient in the department of hagiology.

INTRODUCTION
TO THE
LIVES OF THE SAINTS

THE MARTYROLOGIES

martyrology means, properly, a list of witnesses. The martyrologies are catalogues in which are to be found the names of the Saints, with the days and places of their deaths, and generally with the distinctive character of their sanctity, and with an historic summary of their lives. The name is incorrect if we use the word "martyr" in its restricted sense as a witness unto death. "Hagiology" would be more suitable, as a martyrology includes the names of many Saints who were not martyrs. But the term "Martyrology" was given to this catalogue at an early age, when it was customary to commemorate only those who were properly martyrs, having suffered death in testimony to their faith; but it is not unsuitable if we regard as martyrs all those who by their lives have testified to the truth, as indeed we are justified in doing.

In the primitive Church it was customary for the Holy Eucharist to be celebrated on the anniversary of the death of a martyr—if possible, on his tomb. Where in one diocese there were several martyrs, as, for instance, in that of Cæsarea, there were many days in the year on which these commemorations were made, and the Church—say that of Cæsarea—drew up a calendar with the days marked on which these festivals occurred.

In his "Church History," Eusebius quotes a letter from the Church of Smyrna, in which, after giving an account of the martyrdom of their bishop, S. Polycarp, the disciple of S. John the Divine, the Smyrnians observe: "Our subtle enemy, the devil, did his utmost that we should not take away the body, as many of us anxiously wished. It was suggested that we should desert our crucified Master, and begin to worship Polycarp. Fools! who knew not that we can never desert Christ, who died for the salvation of all men, nor worship any other. Him we adore as the Son of God; but we show respect to the martyrs, as His disciples and followers. The centurion, therefore, caused the body to be burned; we then gathered his bones, more precious than pearls, and more tried than gold, and buried them. In this place, God willing, we will meet, and celebrate with joy and gladness the birthday of this martyr, as well in memory of those who have been crowned before, as by his example to prepare and strengthen others for the combat."[2]

S. Polycarp suffered in the year 166; he had been ordained Bishop of Smyrna by S. John in 96. This passage is extremely interesting, for it shows us, in the age following that of the apostles, the Church already keeping the festivals of martyrs, and, as we may conclude from the words of the letter, over the tombs of the martyrs. In this the Church was following the pattern shown to S. John in vision; for he heard the cry of the souls of the martyrs reposing under the altar in heaven. Guided, doubtless, by this, the Church erected altars over the bodies of saints. Among the early Christian writers there are two, S. Paulinus of Nola, and Prudentius, whose testimony is of intrinsic value, not only from its being curiously interesting, but because it is so full and unequivocal as to the fact of the