wood-the wood they were to adore! Imbert replied, it was Christ, not the wood; for which he was cited before the archbishop of Bourdeaux, suspended from his functions, and even threatened with chains, and perpetual imprisonment. It little availed him to cite the Bishop of Meaux's distinction; it was answered, that the church allowed it not.”

I am well aware, that writers of the Romish Faith deny the worship of the Cross-they say, that the apparent worship, paid to it, is really given to him, who suffered thereon. The prostration to the Cross is, at all events, of a most dangerous tendency, and should be altogether avoided; but, in fact, their own records (if there be meaning in words) prove the idolatry to the Cross. Its worship is specially sanctioned, nay, directed, by the ordinance of Archbishop Arundel, and manifold proofs might be given of the practice.

As, then, the Cross was adored-why should there be a stop at this point? We have seen, and we know, that it is, in common parlance, sainted-we here see, that it was adoredand I hold, that it was personified!

St. Christopher, the Lycian Martyr, may have held a place in the Continental Calendars; but, although the portrait (so called) was generally to be seen in the Churches of this country, it does not appear, that he had a place in the Calendar of the Anglican Church.

The Church of Salisbury was especially celebrated for her formularies, the use of which prevailed much in this country. I have now before me the "Portiforium seu Breuiarium ad vsum Ecclesie Sarisburiensis," printed at Paris in the year 1554; and, in the calendar prefixed to that Breviary, there is no mention of Saint Christopher. I have, also, before me the Book of Offices of the same Church, "Sacra Institvtio Baptizandi: Matrimonivm celebrandi:" &c. " iuxta vsum insignis Ecclesiæ Sarisburiensis," printed at Duacum (Douay) in the year 1604; and, amongst the numerous saints invoked at different parts of the services, St. Christopher is not specially called on. In the Anglican Church he must have been regarded as one amongst the concluding invocation to the "Omnes Sancti." This secondary consideration ill accords with any presumed notion, that he (the Lycian Martyr) was intended by the general, Cruciana, p. 301.

and renowned, portraiture of the giant bearing our Saviour on his shoulders.

In the further prosecution of this subject I here again repeat, that many obvious, and well-known, truths have been lost in the mists of time; and it will be for me here to develope, why our Saviour appears to be borne on the shoulders of a giant, and why that giant is called Saint Christopher.

It does, then, appear, that the Cross was denominated "The Cristofre" or "Christopher" by the comparison of a line in Chaucer with the dress of the "Galante" exhibited, gentle reader, to your view as in conference with "Dethe," in the plate, p. 105 of this volume. You will there see, that the "Galante” wears in his breast a Cross, denotive of his religious faith, and such a Cross does the poet, in his descriptive account of the pilgrims to Canterbury, announce, that the "Yemen," (or Yeoman,) the attendant on the "Squier," also did wear, as thus

"A Cristofre on his brest of silver shene:"

says he:

that is a silver cross shone on his breast. The word Cristofre here seems, by its orthography, to be rather of Latin Origin; (the compound of the words Christus and fero;) but, taken as the Christian Name of a man, it is clearly of the similar Grecian Derivation-thus Christopher is, evidently, from XgioroPogos—the bearer of Christ. Here, then, you have the apt allusion to the peculiar office of the sacred cross; and from hence (united with circumstances not yet detailed) arose the personification of that cross, and the confusion between that allegory and the Lycian Martyr. It is a remarkable circumstance, that none of the Commentators on Chaucer developed the meaning of "Cristofre" as thus used by him. Tyrwhitt, his Editor, says― "A Cristofre] I do not see the meaning of this passage. By the statute 37 Edw. III. Yeomen are forbidden to wear any ornaments of gold or silver." Strutt, in his "Dress and Habits," &c., (vol. ii. p. 278,) also says of this " Yemen" and his "Cristofre:" "The best Editor of the Canterbury Tales declared, that he did not see the meaning of this ornament. After him, I shall deliver my opinion with diffidence-I take it to have been a clasp, or buckle, of silver, having the image of St. Christopher, with our Blessed Saviour upon his shoulders, painted, or engraved, upon it. This subject, we know, was exceedingly popular at the

time the first specimens of engraving were produced, and probably not less so in the days of Chaucer. One observation, however, upon this passage, naturally occurs, namely, the inefficacy of the sumptuary laws existent at this time, which prohibited a yeoman from wearing any ornaments of gold or silver."

It is very singular, that neither Tyrwhitt nor Strutt turned the mind to the origin of the word "Christofre," and, from thence, did not draw the inference, that it may have been the Cross, which the review of the figure of the "Galante” tells us, that it actually was.

I shall now remark, that the supposed Saint Christopher is usually depicted as wading across a river (traditionally an arm of the sea) with our Saviour on his shoulders; and here, I think, we arrive at the origin of the personification-this mingled allegory and metaphor. I very strongly opine, that it took its rise from the contemplation of the following four verses of the 69th Psalm, the whole of which is prophetic of the crucifixion: 1. "Save me, O God! for the waters are come in even unto my soul." 2. "I stick fast in the deep mire, where no ground is. I am come into deep waters, so that the floods run over me." 15. "Take me out of the mire, that I sink not; O let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters." 16. "Let not the water floods drown me, neither let the deep swallow me up; and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me." Such, in the language of metaphor, is the prophetic appeal of our Blessed Saviour, through the pen of the inspired Psalmist; and, as the supposed St. Christopher took the infant Jesus on his shoulders, and bore him across the river, (or arm of the sea,) so was the Saviour of Man raised triumphant on the Cross, (the Cristofre,) and preserved from the waters of affliction-thus was he taken from the water floods the miseries, and the troubles, of human life-thus was he lifted up on high, and thus did he lead captivity captiveat once himself the Lord of Lords, and the Saviour of fallen

man.

I must here observe, also, that, as our Saviour was crucified between the two thieves," one on the right hand, and another on the left," we may suppose, that their crosses were of the ordinary size, and height; but there ever has been a prevailing, and credited, notion, that the centre cross-that of our Lord

was of greater height, and magnitude, than usual. From hence the stature of man would be still more disproportionate to that of the Cross, and from hence the apparently infant Jesus is seen on the shoulders of the gigantic, and supposed, Saint-the Cristofre-the personified Cross.

The portraiture of the supposed Saint Christopher has been very usually exhibited on the walls, and in the windows, of the sacred edifices of this country, as well as on those of the continent; and it is attended with this remarkable fact, that the fresco painting was ever on the north wall of the Church, and thus fully opposed to the view of those, who came into the sacred edifice from the, accustomed, southern entrance. Now it was held, that, whoever looked on this portrait, he should be, for that day, free from bodily evil. "Christophorum videas postea tutus eris" was a received apothegm to this effect. As here the word "Christophorum" may, on the one hand, be accounted by the Papist to refer to the supposed Saint, the Lycian Martyr, so, on the other, do I refer it, in its early, and primary, signification, to the Cross itself; this was, surely, well understood, before the Bible was taken from the hands of the laic votaries of the Romish Faith, and replaced by that mass of fiction, and absurdities-the "Golden Legend." In this-its reference to the Cross--we have a fact strongly corroborative of my hypothesis-the assimilation of this traditional usage of the Romish Faith with the history of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, which was, mark you well, the prefiguration of the Crucifixion of our Blessed Lord, and allusive to the necessity, that, under the Christian Dispensation, all, who were bowed down beneath bodily, or mental, disease-all, whose minds were oppressed with the troubles of this life-all, who were immersed in the waters of affliction, should look up to him in the sure hope, that he would deliver them out of all their troubles, and would (as he himself was lifted up) take them, also, "out of the deep waters," and raise them above the vexations, the troubles, and afflictions, of this transitory world. Thus was the ,type removed, and its fulfilment made apparent-thus was the brazen serpent in the wilderness supplanted by the vivifying Cross (bearing the Lord of Glory) on the walls of the House of God. It is difficult to open a County History, and not find some instance of the supposed Saint Christopher on the walls of some Church. In fact I suspect, that such a portraiture of the

finishing act of the ministry of our Saviour on earth was exhibited to the religious contemplation of the sincere worshipper of Christ on his entrance into nearly every Church.

Stukeley, in his "Palæographia Britannica," (No. 11, p. 98,) avers, that, among the Papists, "St. Christopher had great power in preventing storms, tempests, earthquakes, and lightning, &c., and their dreadful effects." Whence, it may be asked, was this attributed power? The answer is obvious. In the superstitious ages, storms, tempests, earthquakes, &c., were considered to be the work of the devil, ever intent on injuring man, and subverting his prospects of happiness-ever intent on destroying the fairest works of creation, and the best products of the genius-of the inventive powers of mortal man. Bearing in mind his expulsion from heaven above, the Evil Fiend could not but be regarded as ever ready to exert his malevolence on the sacred edifice-the holy temple-the bond of attachment betwixt Man and his Creator. Conscious of the victory obtained over him by the sacrifice of our Saviour on the Cross, it was deemed, that he was ever ready to fly from that Cross-the instrument alike of the salvation of mankind and of his own subjection (see the legend of St. Christopher, p. 530 of this vol.) Hence the practice (and not for the sake of ornament alone) of surmounting every sacred edifice with the Cross. Hence the external walls of the far-famed Cathedral of Salisbury (built in the form of a cross) were guarded in various places with a cross of brass, torn off, as we may readily believe, by the ruthless puritans of Cromwell's days. These crosses (each point of which, again, ended with a cross florée) were severally set within a quatrefoil, and the whole surrounded with a circle.* Hence the various summits of this sacred edifice were made to bristle with the cross. Thus was the Cathedral of Sarum fortified against the assaults, and the active agency, of the Evil Being; and thus were the prophylactic powers of the cross metonymically transferred to the legendary Saint Christopher—the Xgioropogos—the bearer of Christ-the vivified, and emblematic, Cross.

Subsequently to the writing of the above passages I found, to my satisfaction, their tenor confirmed by reference to the ritualist Durandus: (Ration. Divin. Offic.) "Hoc ergo crucis

From thence, I trow, was derived the all-powerful circle of the magician, within which, if Satan, perchaunce, should set his hoof, he would be taken, as though in a trap.-E. D.