CURRENT LITERATURE.
THE ENGLISH SAINTS.
The English Saints. By W. H. Hutton. (Wells Gardner, Dalton, and Co. 12s. 6d.)—" It should be possible through the lives of the Saints most revered in any country to trace in some detail the influence of Christian faith upon national character." Mr. Hutton thus indicates the purpose of his readable book. He deals with " Royal Saints," " Statesmen Saints," " Women and Children among the Saints," and " The Ideal of Monk and Hermit." We think the author's most interesting pages are devoted to the Venerable Bede—of whose marvellous influence, shut up as he was in his Northern monastery, we find a striking picture— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, St. Dunstan, and St. Anselm. As illustrating St. Anselm's character Mr. Hutton quotes the controversy between the Saint and Archbishop Lanfranc anent the canonisation of St. Alphege, whose right to the honour Lanfranc doubted on the score that " he died not for confessing Christ, but for refusing to ransom his life for money" at a time when he knew his dependents could not raise the sum required without great suffering. John the Baptist, replied Anselm, was canonised by the Church as having died a martyr, "not for refusing to deny Christ, but for refusing to keep back the truth." Christ, he continues, "is truth and righteousness, and he who dies for truth and righteousness dies for Christ." A part of what was probably a coronation sermon preached by St. Dunstan contains an equally modern sentiment. " The right of a hallowed King" is, he declared, "that he judge no man unrighteously, and that he defend and protect widows and step-children and serf-folk, and that he have old and sober men for councillors, and righteous men for stewards, for whatsoever they do unrighteously by his fault he must render account thereof on Doomsday." Mr. Hutton gives a fine portrait of Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, that rough Englishman who spoke his mind to Kings and prelates, and who, when urged at the end of his life by the Archbishop of Canterbury to ask pardon " for having so often provoked his spiritual father and primate, refused, saying that, far from regretting it, he was sorry he had not done so oftener, and if God spared his life ho would certainly provoke him more often by speaking his mind plainly." Space forbids us to quote more, but we cordially recommend to our readers Mr. Hutton's contribution to hagiological literature.
Previous page
