Page:The Bible of Amiens.djvu/53

Rh coat, or such mediaeval nether attire as remained to him.

But, as he stood at the altar, a globe of light appeared above his head; and when he raised his bare arms with the Host—the angels were seen round him, hanging golden chains upon them, and jewels, not of the earth.

Incredible to you in the nature of things, wise reader, and too palpably a gloss of monkish folly on the older story?

Be it so: yet in this fable of monkish folly, understood with the heart, would have been the chastisement and check of every form of the church's pride and sensuality, which in our day have literally sunk the service of God and His poor into the service of the clergyman and his rich; and changed what was once the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, into the spangling of Pantaloons in an ecclesiastical Masquerade.

But one more legend,—and we have enough to show us the roots of this saint's strange and universal power over Christendom.

"What peculiarly distinguished St. Martin was his sweet, serious, unfailing serenity; no one had ever seen him angry, or sad, or gay; there was nothing in his heart but piety to God and pity