SIR, —In the Spectator of September 23rd you kindly inserted a
review of the first volume of " The Layman's Book ot Saints " which I am writing. In it your reviewer accuses me of arbitrarily choosing from "the whole region of hagiology" only those saints which please me best. " Mr. Sampson," lie writes, "does not even keep to the names in our Calendai; substituting Winwaloe for Prism (January 18th), Sebastian for Fabian (January 20th), Pacian for Dunstan (March 19th), Ludger for Augustin, and John of Egypt for Bede. These last three changes," he adds, "apart from the wilfulnesa which dictates them, are quite unaccountable." And I quite agree with him that, if he were correct, these last three changes would be unaccountable. But your reviewer obviously turned up the Calendar for May in his Prayer-book, and took it for March. In May he will find that St. Augustin, St. Dunstan, and St. Bede's Days are on the 19th, 26th, and 27th; and in " The Layman's Book of Saints " for this month they so appear. Again, why other saints were substituted for St, Prisca and St. Fabian on January 18th and 20th was for the very simple reason that little or nothing is known about them: I feel, and I think justly, some cause for resentment at thil kind of criticism from your reviewer, for, with few exceptions: all the black-letter saints are inserted on their proper days, and, as far as possible,.a.s auy 3farty.rology,wouldhave sliojvn him, on every other day of the year I have chosen some saint specially commemorated on that particular day by the Church. There are unavoidable exceptions, but I have endeavoured to make them as few as possible.—I am, Sir, &c., GERARD SAMPSON, C.R. House of the .Resurrection, Afirfield.
[We greatly regret the misreading of May for March, and the censure founded on it; but we still think Mr. Sampson's book a mistake. Books so constructed put the Anglican Communion, which has no method of canonisation, at a disadvantage. The Anglican layman is taught to look for saints anywhere but among his own people.—THE REVIEWER.]
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