no longer defend it. The change seems to show that,
as time went on, the privileges of the office were regarded with less
eagerness, and it was more difficult to find one man a year anxious to
be killed.

But with what motive, century after century, no matter at what interval
of years, did a volunteer always come forward to slay and to be slain?
Certainly, the priest had to be a runaway slave; but was Roman slavery
so hideous that a life of unending terror by day and night was to be
preferred--a life enslaved as a horse's chained to the grinding mill in
a brickyard, and without the horse's hours of stabled peace? Hunger will
drive to much, but even when the risky encounter with one's predecessor
had been successfully accomplished, what enjoyment could there be in
meals eaten in bitter haste, with one hand upon the sword? As to money,
what should all the wealth of the shrine profit a man compelled, in
Bishop Ken's language, to live each day as it were his last? Promise of
future and eternal bliss? The religion held out no sure and certain hope
of such a state. Joy in the divine service? It is not to vigorous
runaway slaves that we look for ecstatic rapture in performing heaven's
will. Upon the priest was bestowed the title of "King of the Wood." Can
it be that for that barren honour a human being dyed his hands with
murder and risked momentary assassination for the remainder of his
lifetime? Well, we have heard of the Man who would be King, and empty
titles still are sought by political services equally repellent.

But, for ourselves, in that forlorn and hag-ridden figure we more
naturally see a symbol of the generations that slay the slayer and shall
themselves be slain. It is thus that each generation comes knocking at
the door--comes, rather, so suddenly and unannounced, clutching at the
Tree of Life, and with the glittering sword of youth beating down its
worn-out defenders. New blood, new thoughts and hopes each generation
brings to resuscitate the genius of fertility and growth. Often it longs
imperiously to summon a stalwart ruffian, who will finish off
decrepitude and make an end; but hardly has the younger generation
itself assumed the office and taken its stand as the Warder of the Tree,
when its life and hopes in turn are threatened, and among the
ambuscading woods it hears a footstep coming and sees the gleam of a
drawn sword. Let us not think too precisely on such events. But rather
let us climb the toilsom