again! And why did he come back again? We shall see presently. One thing is certain, that the British Church both summoned him and welcomed him.

This passage, like many others in Bede's works, has been erroneously quoted by dissenters in support of the theory that the ancient British Church believed in miracles, and from this they have argued that if the modern Church of England is identical with the Church of ancient Britain, it is nothing more or less than rank popery.

Reasoning and logic are generally thrown away upon non-conformists, and when confuting their errors one always feels as if one were casting pearls before swine. My first inclination, therefore, when calling to mind

the Methodist objection to the above passage, is to pass it by in dignified silence. Nevertheless, as a matter of mere incidental interest to the historical student, I think I may venture, in this particular instance, to expose the futility of the argument.

Germanus, then, was summoned from Gaul by Elafius, a Briton, whose son was a cripple. This poor boy "labored under a weakness of his limbs." Now, what would a father do in these days with a son who had a weakness in his limbs? He would send for a rubber.

This is neither more nor less than what Elafius did. The medical treatment known as massage is better understood by the French than by any other nation, and Germanus was probably the only Frenchman known

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to Elafius. What more natural, therefore, than that Elafius should send for Germanus?

And, having arrived, what did Germanus do? He caused the youth to sit down-just what a rubber would do and then he "gently passed his healing hand over the leg which was contracted." In fact he did exactly what a professional rubber would do to-day. We are not told how often he did it at a time, or how long the treatment was continued but this we do know, that he pesevered, "until the withered nerves were restored." There is no mystery whatever about this! It is simply an ordinary, though skillful cure. The story is peculiarly interesting, as the earliest instance recorded of a cure by massage.

I can imagine the glee with which the unfriendly reader will reflect that I have entirely overlooked the sentence, "The multitude was amazed at the miracle, and the Catholic Faith was firmly planted in the minds of all." Let him not be over-jubilant, however. I was on the point of coming to this. What is a miracle? The word is from the Latin miraculum, which means a wonderful, strange, or marvelous thing. Thus Cicero writes -portenta et miracula philosophorum somniantium, Virgil-in miracula

rerum, and Livy-miraculum magnitudinis, in neither case meaning miracles in the ecclesiastical sense. If the reader be not content with the senses in which the best Latin authors used the word, I know not what will please him! Well then, the

multitude was amazed at this miraculum, or wonderful thing, for without doubt it was the first case they had seen of massage.

"And the Catholic faith was firmly planted in the minds of all." Catholic here means Church of England. The whole passage, therefore, should be read thus:-"The multitude was amazed at this wonderful instance of the successful use of the French process, known as massage. The religion of the Church of England was firmly planted in the minds of all." I place the full stop in the middle, not with any intention of tampering with the meaning of the passage, but merely for the sake of euphony. How beautifully simple this passage is when one looks at it honestly, without attempting to explain it away. Thus does