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This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ... THE MANUSCRIPT OF SAINT ALEXIUS There came a child into the solemn hall Where great Pope Innocent sat throned and heard Angry disputings on Free-Will in man, Grace, Purity, and the Pelagian creed-- An ignorantly bold poor child who stood Showing his rags before the Pope's own eyes, And bade him come to shrive a beggar man He found alone and dying in a shed, Who sent him for the Pope, "not any else But the Pope's self." And Innocent arose And hushed the mockers "Surely I will go: Servant of servants, T." So he went forth To where the man lay sleeping into death, And blessed him. Then, with a last spurt of life, The dying man rose sitting, "Take," he said, And placed a written scroll in the Pope's hand, And so fell back and died. Thus said the scroll: Alex1us, meanest servant of the Lord, Son of Euphemianus, senator, And of Aglaia, writes his history, God willing it, which, if God so shall will, Shall be revealed when he is fallen asleep. Spirit of Truth, Christ, and all Saints of Heaven, And Mary, perfect dove of guilelessness, Make his mind clear, that he write utter truth. That which I was all know: that which I am God knows, not I, if I stand near to Him Because I have not yielded, or, by curse Of recreant longings, am to Him a wretch It needs Such grace to pardon; but I know That one day soon I, dead, shall see His face With that great pity on it which is ours Who love Him and have striven and then rest, That I shall look on Him and be content. For what I am, in my last days, to men, 'Tis nothing; scarce a name, and even that Known to be not my own; a wayside wretch Battening upon a rich lord's charity And praying, (some say like the hypocrites), A wayside wretch who, harboured for a night Is harboured still, and, idle on the alms,...

Excerpt from PortraitsAnd now when day, with all its useless And useless smiles and idiots' prying eyes That impotently peer into one's life, When day, with all its seemly lying shows.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.