flesh naked. Taking the head between his hands, he
thus spake groaning: "Glorious Martyr, holy Edmund, blessed be
the hour when thou wert born. Glorious Martyr, turn it not to my
perdition that I have so dared to touch thee, I miserable and
sinful; thou knowest my devout love, and the intention of my
mind." And proceeding, he touched the eyes; and the nose, which
was very massive and prominent (_valde grossum et valde
eminentem_); and then he touched the breast and arms; and
raising the left arm he touched the fingers, and placed his own
fingers between the sacred fingers. And proceeding he found the
feet standing stiff up, like the feet of a man dead yesterday;
and he touched the toes, and counted them (_tangendo numeravit_).

'And now it was agreed that the other Brethren should be called
forward to see the miracles; and accordingly those ten now
advanced, and along with them six others who had stolen in
without the Abbot's assent, namely, Walter of St. Alban's, Hugh
the Infirmirarius, Gilbert brother of the Prior, Richard of
Henham, Jocellus our Cellarer, and Turstan the Little; and all
these saw the Sacred Body, but Turstan alone of them put forth
his hand, and touched the Saint's knees and feet. And that there
might be abundance of witnesses, one of our Brethren, John of
Dice, sitting on the roof of the Church, with the servants of the
Vestry, and looking through, clearly saw all these things.

What a scene; shining luminous effulgent, as the lamps of St.
Edmund do, through the dark Night; John of Dice, with vestrymen,
clambering on the roof to look through; the Convent all asleep,
and the Earth all asleep,--and since then, Seven Centuries of
Time mostly gone to sleep! Yes, there, sure enough, is the
martyred Body of Edmund landlord of the Eastern Counties, who,
nobly doing what he liked with his own, was slain three hundred
years ago: and a noble awe surrounds the memory of him, symbol
and promoter of many other right noble things.

But have not we now advanced to strange new stages of Hero-
worship, now in the little Church of Hampden, with our penknives
out, and twelve grave-diggers with pulleys? The manner of men's
Hero-worship, verily it is the innermost fact of their existence,
and determines all the rest,--at public hustings, in private
drawing-rooms, in church, in market, and wherever else. Have
true reverence, and what indeed is inseparable therefrom,
reverence the right man, all