It was long, long after an angel had appeared and carried Saint Martin’s soul in the form of a child straight to God, as a gentle old writer attests, that a modern geologist voiced the fundamental idea of the best beloved saint of old Gaul, “An honest god is the noblest work of man.” [Illustration: _The Last Resting Place of the Great Poet of Mediævalism—Tomb of Dante, Ravenna._] But the past, as well as the present, has its peculiar eloquence wherewith to honor the dead. Over one of the oldest Christian altars spared to us by time, in solemn, enduring mosaic, big and simple, stands Saint Martin leading a line of saints to Christ. And this great hieratic on the wall of an old church of old Ravenna describes, as no language of the present may, an early builder of the great mystic Church which “rests upon the brawny trunks of heroes ... whose spans and arches are the joined hands of comrades ... and whose heights and spaces are inscribed by the numberless musings of all the dreamers of the world.” _The Golden Madonna of Rheims_ Late in the fifth century, while the confusion of the Dark Ages reigned supreme, the Christian bishop of the Remi was at work on the discouraging task of rebuilding his church after pagan depredations at Rheims, when the great joy was vouchsafed to him of baptizing Clovis, the ruler of the largest Teutonic State of the age. [Illustration: _A Recent Tribute to Clovis and Saint Remi on the Interior Frieze of the Pantheon, Paris._] Saint Remi recommended Clovis to adore that which he had burned and to burn that which he had adored, that the work of judicious destruction might continue. Clovis sent offerings to all the sanctuaries, particularly to that of the old soldier Saint Martin. Three thousand Franks were baptized; Clovis exchanged the three toads on his shield for the fleur-de-lis, and France became Christian _toute de suite_. Then Saint Remi dreamt of great things yet to come: of a king and a people governed by the Church of Christ, temporally and spiritually. And he interpreted this dream to the people by a charming symbol: he explained how the Holy Ghost, the Heavenly Dove, had brought from above some spiritual oil with which to anoint Clovis at his baptism. But to make the idea clear to these many men of childish minds and many _patois_, he showed them a little ampulla filled with oil, which, he explained, “the Dove” had brought to him from Heaven to grace the baptism of their chief. And they decided to keep the oil that was left in the ampulla for great occasions, like coronations. This wonderful ointment united the Crown and the Church as long as it lasted. During the Revolution a sansculotte shattered the old vessel. Orthodoxy claimed to have caught one drop and encased it in a beautiful new vase; it was used again, but its efficacy was no more. And not long thereafter the French people decided to do without coronations, or monasteries, but they still love Clovis and Saint Remi.