[Footnote 25:"But, standing in the lowest place, And mingled with the work-day crowd, A poor man looks, with lifted face, And hears the Angels cry aloud.

  “He seeks not how each instant flies,
  One moment is Eternity;
  His spirit with the Angels cries
  To Thee, to Thee, continually.

  “What if, Isaiah-like, he know
  His heart be weak, his lips unclean,
  His nature vile, his office low,
  His dwelling and his people mean?

  “To such the Angels spake of old—­
  To such of yore, the glory came;
  These altar fires can ne’er grow cold: 
    Then be it his, that cleansing flame.”

These verses, part of a very lovely poem, “To Thee all Angels cry aloud,” in the ‘Monthly Packet’ for September 1873, are only signed ‘Veritas.’  The volume for that year (the 16th) is well worth getting, for the sake of the admirable papers in it by Miss Sewell, on questions of the day; by Miss A.C.  Owen, on Christian Art; and the unsigned Cameos from English History.]

It would delay me too long just now to trace in specialty farther the functions of the mythic, or, as in another sense they may be truly called, the universal, Saints:  the next greatest of them, St. Ursula, is essentially British,—­and you will find enough about her in ‘Fors Clavigera’; the others, I will simply give you in entirely authoritative order from the St. Louis’ Psalter, as he read and thought of them.

The proper Service-book of the thirteenth century consists first of the pure Psalter; then of certain essential passages of the Old Testament—­invariably the Song of Miriam at the Red Sea and the last song of Moses;—­ordinarily also the 12th of Isaiah and the prayer of Habakkuk; while St. Louis’ Psalter has also the prayer of Hannah, and that of Hezekiah (Isaiah xxxviii. 10-20); the Song of the Three Children; then the Benedictus, the Magnificat, and the Nunc Dimittis.  Then follows the Athanasian Creed; and then, as in all Psalters after their chosen Scripture passages, the collects to the Virgin, the Te Deum, and Service to Christ, beginning with the Psalm ’The Lord reigneth’; and then the collects to the greater individual saints, closing with the Litany, or constant prayer for mercy to Christ, and all saints; of whom the order is,—­Archangels, Patriarchs, Apostles, Disciples, Innocents, Martyrs, Confessors, Monks, and Virgins.  Of women the Magdalen always leads; St. Mary of Egypt usually follows, but may be the last.  Then the order varies in every place, and prayer-book, no recognizable supremacy being traceable; except in relation to the place, or person, for whom the book was written.  In St. Louis’, St. Genevieve (the last saint to whom he prayed on his death-bed) follows the two Maries; then come—­memorable for you best, as easiest, in this six-foil group,—­Saints Catharine, Margaret, and Scolastica, Agatha, Cecilia, and Agnes; and then ten more, whom you may learn or not as you like:  I note them now only for future reference,—­more lively and easy for your learning,—­by their French names,