themes of contemplation, would in themselves be of little worth: we can comprehend the visions of a Saint Francis de Salis, an Ignatius Loyola, a Peter the Hermit, a Santa Theresa, and even more readily those of a Drihthelm or a Madame Guyon: but how shall we understand the record of them by a Beda or a Fenelon? ----- Footnote 715: Beda, H. E. v. 12. Footnote 716: Beda, H. E. v. 13. Footnote 717: The first Bishop of Whiterne in Galloway, who died in 737. Any one who desires to learn more of the miserable superstitions which Beda could recommend, may see the account of Fursæus (H. E. iii. 19), and the MS. lives of the saint of which Mr. Stevenson has given a notice in his edition of Beda, pp. 197, 199, notes. ----- Such authority as this was likely to be followed with zeal; once open, the career of unbridled fancy was sure to find no limit; the more sure, since then, as now, the fears and miseries of the mass were sources of profit to the few. Then, as now, there were rogues found who dared to step between man and God, to clothe themselves in the coat without seam, to make themselves the mediators between eternal mercy and the perishing sinner. Accordingly in later times we find variation upon variation in the outline already so vigorously sketched; William of Malmesbury furnishes an ample field for collectors of this kind of literature. I shall content myself here with citing from the so often quoted Salomon and Saturn two passages, which to me are redolent of heathendom, disguised after the fashion which has been described.