ation of Britain by
the Roman troops, at this time abandoned. In another passage, whose
genuineness has been questioned, Prosper says that Celestine sent Germanus
in his own stead to Britain. Prosper was certainly in a position to
receive from the best-informed source an account of what was done; but the
Gallican Church appears to have known nothing of this sending of Germanus
by Celestine. Prosper's inclination to magnify the importance of the Popes
has been referred to already[29]; and we may take it as certain that if
such an unparalleled step as going himself or sending some one in his
stead, a forecast of Gregory's action, had been attempted or taken by the
Pope, we should have heard of it in the records of Gaul or in the life of
Germanus. The successor of Germanus would have known of it. That Celestine
had known at the time what was going on, and that he felt and probably
expressed warm approval, we may regard as certain too. I must defer, to an
opportunity in my third lecture, remarks which I wish to make on what may
seem an ungenerous questioning of these assertions of benefits conferred
by Rome.

In 429, then, the Gallican prelates came to Britain. They had a very rough
crossing, and a story, rejected with scorn by quite modern writers, is
told of a miracle wrought by Germanus. He stilled the storm by pouring oil
upon the sea in the name of the Trinity. We now know that if they had oil
on board, and knew how to use it, the stilling of the waves was done;
without miracle, but with not the less earnest trust in the watchful care
of God[30].

It was on this journey to Britain that Germanus and Lupus saw at Nanterre
a little girl aged seven, and prophesied great things of her. Her name was
Genofeva, and she became the famous Ste. Genevieve. In these days when
people coquet with the principles of revolution and shut their eyes to its
realities, it may be well to add that her coffin of silver and gold was
sold in 1793, and her body burned on the Place de Greve, by public decree.

When they got to work in Britain, they proceeded on a definite plan. Some
sixty or seventy years before, Hilary, the Bishop of Poitiers, dealing in
Gaul with the great heresy which preceded this, had found it of great
service to go about from place to place and collect in different parts
small assemblies of the bishops, for free discussion and mutual
explanation. He found that misunderstandings were in this way, better than
in any other, g