Page:Post-Mediaeval Preachers.djvu/219

 inculcates a wholesome lesson. There is a ballad in German on the subject, to be found in Pocci and Göres’ Fest Kalender, which has been translated into English and published in some Roman children’s books.

The story was, I believe, originated by Anthony of Sienna, who relates it in his Chronicle of the Dominican Order; and it was from him that the preachers and writers of the Middle Ages drew the incident. With the reader’s permission I will tell the story in my own words, instead of giving the stiff and dry record found in Coster.

There was once a good priest who served a church in Lusitania; and he had two pupils, little boys, who came to him daily to learn their letters, and to be instructed in the Latin tongue.

Now these children were wont to come early from home, and to assist at mass, before ever they ate their breakfast or said their lessons. And thus was each day sanctified to them, and each day saw them grow in grace and in favour with God and man.

These little ones were taught to serve at the Holy Sacrifice, and they performed their parts with care and reverence. They knelt and responded, they raised the priest’s chasuble and kissed its hem, they rang the bell at the sanctus and the elevation; and all they did, they did right well.

And when mass was over, they extinguished the altar lights, and then taking their little loaf and can of milk, retired to a side chapel for their breakfast.

One day the elder lad said to his master—

“Good father, who is the strange child who visits us every morning when we break our fast?”