“Now neither the father nor the mother had yet entered where the children were, but the father sighed heavily because they were dead, and the mother asked for them, that they might rejoice together; but Amile said, ’Dame! let the children sleep.’  And it was already the hour of Tierce.  And going in alone to the children to weep over them, he found them at play in the bed; only, in the place of the sword-cuts about their throats was, as it were, a thread of crimson.  And he took them in his arms and carried them to his wife and said, ’Rejoice greatly!  For thy children whom I had slain by the commandment of the angel, are alive, and by their blood is Amis healed.’”

I think you will all see how fine a story this is, and feel the emotional force of the grand moral idea behind it.  There is nothing more to tell you, except the curious fact that during the Middle Ages, when it was believed that the story was really true, Amis and Amile—­or Amicus and Amelius—­were actually considered by the Church as saints, and people used to pray to them.  When anybody was anxious for his friend, or feared that he might lose the love of his friend, or was afraid that he might not have strength to perform his duty as friend—­then he would go to church to implore help from the good saints Amicus and Amelius.  But of course it was all a mistake—­a mistake which lasted until the end of the seventeenth century!  Then somebody called the attention of the Church to the unmistakable fact that Amicus and Amelius were merely inventions of some mediaeval romancer.  Then the Church made investigation, and greatly shocked, withdrew from the list of its saints those long-loved names of Amicus and Amelius—­a reform in which I cannot help thinking the Church made a very serious mistake.  What matter whether those shadowy figures represented original human lives or only human dreams?  They were beautiful, and belief in them made men think beautiful thoughts, and the imagined help from them had comforted many thousands of hearts.  It would have been better to have left them alone; for that matter, how many of the existent lives of saints are really true?  Nevertheless the friends are not dead, though expelled from the heaven of the Church.  They still live in romance; and everybody who reads about them feels a little better for their acquaintance.

What I read to you was from the French version—­that is much the more beautiful of the two.  You will find some extracts from the English version in the pages of Ten Brink.  But as that great German scholar pointed out, the English story is much rougher than the French.  For example, in the English story, the knight rushes out of his castle to beat the leper at the gate, and to accuse him of having stolen the cup.  And he does beat him ferociously, and abuses him with very violent terms.  In fact, the English writer reflected too much of mediaeval English character, in trying to cover, or to improve upon, the French