hies whose heroic deeds as
the servants of Jehovah will always appeal to the imagination of
youthful minds. But it is not with Bible characters only that this book
deals. The lives of Christian saints who entered upon their inheritance,
such as Christopher and Sylvester and Francis of Assisi, also have their
place, while yet more prominent are stories and poems based on some
Bible incidents. Even selections such as Hawthorne's Great Stone Face or
Wordsworth's Ode to Duty have their roots deep in the Bible, for they
can be understood and explained only by those who know the Revelation it
contains. In so far, then, as the subject matter of the volume is
concerned, either it or its inspiration can always be traced back to the
Bible.

When we turn from the Bible material which, as we have seen, supplies
both subject and inspiration, to the _source_ from which the selections
in their literary form as here given are derived, we find that the old
foundations have sufficed for many kinds of structure. Probably the
source from which the editor has drawn most largely is the Golden
Legend. This work, which was translated into English and printed by
Caxton in 1483, although little heard of now, was for several centuries
a household word in Christendom. It was the creation of a Genoese
Archbishop, Jacobus de Voragine, and dates from about the middle of the
thirteenth century. The good Archbishop, using the Bible and the Lives
of the Saints as a basis, and as a sharer of the superstitions of the
time having unbounded faith in every legend of the Church, put together
in simple form for the edification of his flock the various stories
about Jewish and Christian worthies which compose the original Legenda
Aurea. This was translated into French by one Jean de Vignay in the
fourteenth century, and the English version was in turn mainly made from
this translation. In the simple, sturdy language of Caxton the book
became a most popular one, being often read aloud in the Parish Churches
of England, where it helped to familiarize the people, especially the
young, with sacred story as represented by the heroes of the Old
Testament and the saints of the Church. In Caxton's introduction there
is a quaint sentence regarding the name of the book. After mentioning
the Latin title, he adds "that is to say in Englyshe the golden legende
for lyke as passeth golde in vallwe al other metallys, soo thys legende
exedeth all other bokes." Whether the good