These random incidents are, for the most part, mainly anticipatory of mature experience. They can be matched with the details of Protestant hagiology as recorded in a class of books more common forty years ago than now. It is their remoteness that lends a certain grace and charm to them. The life of a little Christian in the fourth century is invested with an attraction which is wanting in the circumstance of some juvenile saint living in the midst of indifferent scoffers of the early part of the nineteenth century. Occasionally, however, the legends inclose the saintly attributes in some bit of romance, or betray a simple, ingenuous sympathy with childish nature. The legend of S. Kenelm has a faint suspicion of kinship with the story of the babes in the wood. King Kenwulf of Wessex died, and left two daughters, Cwendrida and Burgenilda, and a son of seven years, named Kenelm. The elder of the daughters wished the child out of the way, that she might reign; so she gave money to Askbert, his guardian, the wicked uncle of the story, and bade him privily slay the boy. So Askbert took Kenelm into a wood, as if for a hunt, and by and by the child, tired with the heat, fell asleep under the shade of a tree. Askbert, seeing his time had come, set to work to dig a grave, that all might be in readiness; but Kenelm woke, and said, “It is in vain that you think to kill me here. I shall be slain in another spot. In token whereof, see this rod blossom;” and so saying, he stuck a stick into the ground, and it instantly took root and began to flower. In after days it was a great ash-tree, known as S. Kenelm’s ash. Then Askbert took the little king to another spot, and the child, now wide awake, began to sing the Te Deum. When he came to the verse, “The noble army of martyrs praise Thee,” Askbert cut off his head, and then buried him in the wood. Just as he did this, a white dove flew into the church of S. Peter in Rome, and laid on the high altar a letter, which it bore in its beak. The letter was in English, and it was some time before any one could be found who could read it. Then it was discovered that Kenelm had been killed and his body hidden away. The Pope thereupon wrote letters into England telling of this sorry affair, and men went forth to find the body of the little king. They were led by a pillar of light, which stood over the place where the body lay. So they bore it off and buried it; but they built a chapel over the spot where they had found the body, which is known as S. Kenelm’s chapel to this day. There the chapel stands near Hales Owen; how else did it get its name? and as Mr. Freeman sagely remarks, “It is hard to see what should have made anybody invent such a tale, if nothing of the kind had ever happened.”