THE GOLDEN LEGEND
The “Golden Legend”〖H. C., xxxix, 13.〗 was more specifically pious. It is the best-known collection of those marvelous stories of saints which happily performed the double service of cultivating faith and of providing entertainment by their constant stimulation of the sense of wonder. It is only the former of those services, however, which is explicitly recognized by Caxton. “As gold is most noble above all other metals, in like wise is this legend holden most noble above all other works,” he says, and he prays “that it profit to all them that shall read or hear it read, and may increase in them virtue, and expel vice and sin, that by the example of the holy saints amend their living here in this short life.”