tradition, sometimes the debris of the old creeds and legends of
heathenism; and on, and on, till at length it reached the bottom, and
was dashed in pieces on the Reformation.

One more illustration shall serve as evidence of what the really
greatest, most vigorous, minds in the twelfth century could accept as
possible or probable, which they could relate (on what evidence we do
not know) as really ascertained facts. We remember something of St.
Anselm: both as a statesman and as a theologian, he was unquestionably
among the ablest men of his time alive in Europe. Here is a story which
Anselm tells of a certain Cornish St. Kieran. The saint, with thirty of
his companions, was preaching within the frontiers of a lawless Pagan
prince; and, disregarding all orders to be quiet or to leave the
country, continued to agitate, to threaten, and to thunder even in the
ears of the prince himself. Things took their natural course.
Disobedience provoked punishment. A guard of soldiers was sent, and the
saint and his little band were decapitated. The scene of the execution
was a wood, and the heads and trunks were left lying there for the
wolves and the wild birds.

But now a miracle, such as was once heard of before in the Church in
the person of the holy Denis, was again wrought by Divine Providence
to preserve the bodies of these saints from profanation. The trunk
of Kieran rose from the ground, and selecting first his own head,
and carrying it to a stream, and there carefully washing it, and
afterwards performing the same sacred office for each of his
companions, giving each body its own head, he dug graves for them
and buried them, and last of all buried himself.

It is even so. So it stands written in a life claiming Anselm's
authorship; and there is no reason why the authorship should not be his.
Out of the heart come the issues of evil and of good, and not out of the
intellect or the understanding. Men are not good or bad, noble or
base--thank God for it!--as they judge well or ill of the probabilities
of nature, but as they love God and hate the devil. And yet the story is
instructive. We have heard grave good men--men of intellect and
influence--with all the advantages of modern science, learning,
experience; men who would regard Anselm with sad and serious pity; yet
tell us stories, as having fallen within their own experience, of the
marvels of mesmerism, to the full as ridiculous (if any