Amiens, the birthplace of Peter the Hermit, meeting here and there a ruin, and finding everywhere the connecting historical links between the present and the past.

At Amiens the Class was brought into the presence of a relic which greatly excited the boys' wonder.

"This church," said their guide, taking the Class to a side chapel of the cathedral, " contains a very rare relic, -a part of the head of John the Baptist!"

Passing into the beautiful chapel the Class was shown the shrine containing the precious treasure, which consists of the supposed frontal bone, and the upper jaw of the saint.

The valet de place who accompanied the Class from the hotel seemed to have no doubt of the genuineness of the relic, or of the propriety of adoring it, if indeed it were real,- and he bowed reverently before the shrine.

"Wonderful!" said Frank. "I did not know that such sacred remains were anywhere to be found as are shown us in the churches of France."

"Quite a rare relic," said Master Lewis, coolly. "I believe that, previous to the French Revolution, several whole heads of John the Baptist were to be seen in France."

"You do not think that a church like this would be guilty of imposture, do you?" asked Ernest Wynn.

relics were brought from

They may be genuine,

1766 "Not wilfully. Most of these French Constantinople at the time of the Crusades. the people believe them so; but, in the absence of direct historic evidence, it is probable that the Crusaders were deceived in them by others, who in their turn may have been deceived.

"You will be shown wonderful relics or shrines supposed to contain them, in nearly all the great churches of France. The French people were taught their reverence for relics by St. Louis, who sought to enrich the churches of his country with such treasures."

"I am glad to have you ask the question," said Master Lewis. "His name meets you everywhere in France.

STORY OF ST. LOUIS.

"St. Louis was one of the best men that ever sat on a throne. But he was influenced by the superstitions of the times in which he lived.

"His mother was a most noble and pious woman, and he was a dutiful and affectionate son.

"It was regarded as very pious at this time for a prince to go on a crusade. St. Louis was taken sick, and he made a vow that, if he recovered, he would become a crusader. On his recovery, he appointed his mother regent, and sailed with forty thousand men for Cyprus, where he proceeded against Egypt, thinking by the conquest of that country to open a triumphant way to Palestine. He was defeated, and returned to France.

"He was a model prince among his own people. He used to spend a portion of each day in charity, and to feed an hundred or more paupers every time he went to walk. He visited his own domestics. when they were sick; he founded charities, which have multiplied, and to-day cause his name to be remembered with gratitude almost everywhere in France. He made it the aim of his life to relieve suffering wherever it might be found.

"It is related of him, among a multitude of stories, that he was once accosted by a poor woman standing at the door of her cottage, who held in her hand a loaf, and said,

"Good king, it is of this bread that comes of thine alms that my poor, sick husband is sustained.'

"The king took the loaf and examined it.

"It is rather hard bread,' said he; and he then visited the sick man himself and gave the case his personal sympathy.

"Going out on a certain Good Friday barefoot to distribute alms, he saw a leper on the other side of a dirty pond. He waded through it to the wretched man, gave him alms, then, taking his hand in his own, kissed it. The act greatly astonished his attendants, but the disease was not communicated to him.

"In 1270 he started on a new crusade, but died in Tunis of the pestilence. Visions of the conquest of the Holy City seemed to fill his mind to the last. He was heard to exclaim on his death-bed in his tent, Jerusalem! Jerusalem! We will go up to Jerusalem!''