Well, this idle gossip has brought us within a short distance of Reculvers. Here—so goes the hoary legend—Augustine impressed the first Christian foot upon the English shore, sent hither by good Pope Gregory; no less good that, if the same legend be true, he had a subtle sense of a joke. Christianity, unless historians say what is not, owes somewhat of its introduction into heathen England to a pun. The story is so old that there is not a schoolmaster’s dog throughout merry Britain that could not bark it. Nevertheless, we will indicate our moral courage by repeating it. Our ink turns red with blushes at the thought—no matter—for once we will write in our blushes. [Illustration: “Sugar from even the sweeter lips of lady mistress” ] Pope Gregory, seeing some white-haired, pink-cheeked boys for sale in the Roman slave-market, asked who they were? _Sunt Angli_—they are English, was the response. _Non sunt Angli_—_sed Angeli_; they are not English, but angels, was the Papal playfulness. His Holiness then inquired from what part of England. _Deirii_, they are Deirians, was the answer. Whereupon the pope, following up his vein of pleasantry, said, _Non Deirii, sed De ira_—not Deirians, but from the anger of the Lord: snatched, as his Holiness indicated, from the vengeance that must always light upon heathenism. This grey-haired story, like the grey hairs of Nestor, is pregnant with practical wisdom. Let us imagine Pope Gregory to have been a dull man; even for a pope a dull man. Let us allow that his mind had not been sufficiently comprehensive to take within its circle the scattered lights of intelligence, which, brought into a focus, make a joke. Suppose, in a word, that the pope had had no ear for a pun? Saint Augustine might still have watched the bubbles upon Tiber, and never have been sea-sick on his English voyage. What does this prove? What does this incident preach with a thunder-tongue? Why, the necessity, the vital necessity, of advancing no man to any sort of dignity, who is not all alive as an eel to a joke. We are convinced of it. The world will never be properly ruled, until jests entirely supersede the authority of Acts of Parliament. As it is, the Acts are too frequently the jests, without the fun. We are now close to Reculvers. There, reader, there—where you see that wave leaping up to kiss that big white stone—that is the very spot where Saint Augustine put down the sole of his Catholic foot. If it be not, we have been misinformed and cheated of our money; we can say no more. Never mind the spot. Is there not a glory lighting up the whole beach? Is not every wave of silver—every little stone, a shining crystal? Doth not the air vibrate with harmonies, strangely winding into the heart, and awakening the brain! Are we not under the spell of the imagination which makes the present vulgarity melt away like morning mists, and shows to us the full, uplighted glory of the past?