hillside, and the brightly-watered
plain below, with the corn-yellow champaign above, were inhabited by a
Druid-taught race, wild enough in thoughts and ways, but under Roman
government, and gradually becoming accustomed to hear the names, and
partly to confess the power, of Roman gods. For three hundred years
after the birth of Christ they heard the name of no other God.

Three hundred years! and neither apostles nor inheritors of
apostleship had yet gone into all the world and preached the gospel to
every creature. Here, on their peaty ground, the wild people, still
trusting in Pomona for apples, in Silvanus for acorns, in Ceres for
bread, and in Proserpina for rest, hoped but the season's blessing
from the Gods of Harvest, and feared no eternal anger from the Queen
of Death.

But at last, three hundred years being past and gone, in the
year of Christ 301, there came to this hillside of Amiens, on the
sixth day of the Ides of October, the Messenger of a new Life.

His name, Firminius (I suppose) in Latin, Firmin in French,--so to be
remembered here in Picardy. Firmin, not Firminius; as Denis, not
Dionysius; coming out of space--no one tells what part of space. But
received by the pagan Amienois with surprised welcome, and seen of
them--forty days--many days, we may read--preaching acceptably, and
binding with baptismal vows even persons in good society: and that in
such numbers, that at last he is accused to the Roman governor, by the
priests of Jupiter and Mercury, as one turning the world upside-down.
And in the last day of the Forty--or of the indefinite many meant by
Forty--he is beheaded, as martyrs ought to be, and his ministrations
in a mortal body ended.

The old, old story, you say? Be it so; you will the more easily
remember it. The Amienois remembered it so carefully, that, twelve
hundred years afterwards, in the sixteenth century, they thought good
to carve and paint the four stone pictures Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of our
first choice photographs. (N. B.--This series is not yet arranged, but
is distinct from that referred to in Chapter IV. See Appendix II.).
Scene 1st, St. Firmin arriving; scene 2nd, St. Firmin preaching; scene
3rd, St. Firmin baptizing; and scene 4th, St. Firmin beheaded, by an
executioner with very red legs, and an attendant dog of the character
of the dog in 'Faust,' of whom we may have more to say presently.

Following in the meantime the tale of St. Firmin, as of old time
known, his