author - "Charles Kingsley"
ns, anddown the pleasant vale of Argos, and away and out to sea. And awayand out to sea before it floated the mother and her babe, while allwho watched them wept, save that cruel father, King Acrisius.
So they floated on and on, and the chest danced up and down uponthe billows, and the baby slept upon its mother's breast: but thepoor mother could not sleep, but watched and wept, and she sang toher baby as they floated; and the song which she sang you shalllearn yourselves some day.
And now they are past the last blue headland, and in the open sea;and there is nothing round them but the waves, and the sky, and thewind. But the waves are gentle, and the sky is clear, and thebreeze is tender and low; for these are the days when Halcyone andCeyx build their nests, and no storms ever ruffle the pleasantsummer sea.
And who were Halcyone and Ceyx? You shall hear while the chestfloats on. Halcyone was a fairy maiden, the daughter of the beachand of the wind. And she loved a sailor-boy, an
ssed the bottomof the High Street, he came opposite to one of the many tavernswhich looked out upon the river. In the open bay window satmerchants and gentlemen, discoursing over their afternoon's draughtof sack; and outside the door was gathered a group of sailors,listening earnestly to some one who stood in the midst. The boy,all alive for any sea-news, must needs go up to them, and take hisplace among the sailor-lads who were peeping and whispering underthe elbows of the men; and so came in for the following speech,delivered in a loud bold voice, with a strong Devonshire accent,and a fair sprinkling of oaths.
"If you don't believe me, go and see, or stay here and grow allover blue mould. I tell you, as I am a gentleman, I saw it withthese eyes, and so did Salvation Yeo there, through a window in thelower room; and we measured the heap, as I am a christened man,seventy foot long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high, of silverbars, and each bar between a thirty and forty pound weight.
rld the same stern yet wholesome discipline under which the Western had been restored to life.
The Egyptian and Syrian Churches, therefore, were destined to labour not for themselves, but for us. The signs of disease and decrepitude were already but too manifest in them. That very peculiar turn of the Graeco-Eastern mind, which made them the great thinkers of the then world, had the effect of drawing them away from practice to speculation; and the races of Egypt and Syria were effeminate, over-civilised, exhausted by centuries during which no infusion of fresh blood had come to renew the stock. Morbid, self- conscious, physically indolent, incapable then, as now, of personal or political freedom, they afforded material out of which fanatics might easily be made, but not citizens of the kingdom of God. The very ideas of family and national life-those two divine roots of the Church, severed from which she is certain to wither away into that most godless and most cruel of spectres, a religious world-had p
ns, anddown the pleasant vale of Argos, and away and out to sea. And awayand out to sea before it floated the mother and her babe, while allwho watched them wept, save that cruel father, King Acrisius.
So they floated on and on, and the chest danced up and down uponthe billows, and the baby slept upon its mother's breast: but thepoor mother could not sleep, but watched and wept, and she sang toher baby as they floated; and the song which she sang you shalllearn yourselves some day.
And now they are past the last blue headland, and in the open sea;and there is nothing round them but the waves, and the sky, and thewind. But the waves are gentle, and the sky is clear, and thebreeze is tender and low; for these are the days when Halcyone andCeyx build their nests, and no storms ever ruffle the pleasantsummer sea.
And who were Halcyone and Ceyx? You shall hear while the chestfloats on. Halcyone was a fairy maiden, the daughter of the beachand of the wind. And she loved a sailor-boy, an
ssed the bottomof the High Street, he came opposite to one of the many tavernswhich looked out upon the river. In the open bay window satmerchants and gentlemen, discoursing over their afternoon's draughtof sack; and outside the door was gathered a group of sailors,listening earnestly to some one who stood in the midst. The boy,all alive for any sea-news, must needs go up to them, and take hisplace among the sailor-lads who were peeping and whispering underthe elbows of the men; and so came in for the following speech,delivered in a loud bold voice, with a strong Devonshire accent,and a fair sprinkling of oaths.
"If you don't believe me, go and see, or stay here and grow allover blue mould. I tell you, as I am a gentleman, I saw it withthese eyes, and so did Salvation Yeo there, through a window in thelower room; and we measured the heap, as I am a christened man,seventy foot long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high, of silverbars, and each bar between a thirty and forty pound weight.
rld the same stern yet wholesome discipline under which the Western had been restored to life.
The Egyptian and Syrian Churches, therefore, were destined to labour not for themselves, but for us. The signs of disease and decrepitude were already but too manifest in them. That very peculiar turn of the Graeco-Eastern mind, which made them the great thinkers of the then world, had the effect of drawing them away from practice to speculation; and the races of Egypt and Syria were effeminate, over-civilised, exhausted by centuries during which no infusion of fresh blood had come to renew the stock. Morbid, self- conscious, physically indolent, incapable then, as now, of personal or political freedom, they afforded material out of which fanatics might easily be made, but not citizens of the kingdom of God. The very ideas of family and national life-those two divine roots of the Church, severed from which she is certain to wither away into that most godless and most cruel of spectres, a religious world-had p