eserved, for a token that wisdom
is justified of all her children.

It stands at length in Pertz's admirable 'Monumenta Historica,' among
many another like biography, and if I tell it here somewhat at length,
readers must forgive me.

Every one has heard of little king Pepin, and many may have heard also
how he was a mighty man of valour, and cut off a lion's head at one blow;
and how he was a crafty statesman, and first consolidated the temporal
power of the Popes, and helped them in that detestable crime of
overthrowing the noble Lombard kingdom, which cost Italy centuries of
slavery and shame, and which has to be expiated even yet, it would seem,
by some fearful punishment.

But every one may not know that Pepin had great excuses--if not for
helping to destroy the Lombards--yet still for supporting the power of
the Popes. It seemed to him--and perhaps it was--the only practical
method of uniting the German tribes into one common people, and stopping
the internecine wars by which they were tearing themselves to pieces. It
seemed to him--and perhaps it was--the only practical method for
civilizing and Christianizing the still wild tribes, Frisians, Saxons,
and Sclaves, who pressed upon the German marches, from the mouth of the
Elbe to the very Alps. Be that as it may, he began the work; and his son
Charlemagne finished it; somewhat well, and again somewhat ill--as most
work, alas! is done on earth. Now in the days of little king Pepin there
was a nobleman of Bavaria, and his wife, who had a son called Sturmi; and
they brought him to St. Boniface, that he might make him a priest. And
the child loved St. Boniface's noble English face, and went with him
willingly, and was to him as a son. And who was St. Boniface? That is a
long story. Suffice it that he was a man of Devon, brought up in a
cloister at Exeter; and that he had crossed over into Frankenland, upon
the lower Rhine, and become a missionary of the widest and loftiest aims;
not merely a preacher and winner of souls, though that, it is said, in
perfection; but a civilizer, a colonizer, a statesman. He, and many
another noble Englishman and Scot (whether Irish or Caledonian) were
working under the Frank kings to convert the heathens of the marches, and
carry the Cross into the far East. They led lives of poverty and danger;
they were martyred, half of them, as St. Boniface was at last. But they
did their work; and doubtless they have their reward. The