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THE PLAGUE IN EGYPT 39
be perpetrated upon the young and the innocent.
The sight brought back to my memory
the touching verses sacred recollections of
childhood's happy days in which Coleridge
depicts the " weeping eye " of the holy monk
when, twr elve hundred years ago, he saw in
the Roman Forum a band of English fairhaired
child slaves, and how the good priest,
moved by pity, straightway sent St. Augustine
to England
To tell of God's glad tidings
Of joy, beyond the grave
To tell how Jesus came to earth
The souls of men to save.
So truly did the old man cry,
" Non Angli sunt, sed Angeli" l
I wT as informed that the eleven little
maidens had been secured by a noted raider
principally at Tripoli, and the poor island of
Rhodes, and other small islands, and brought
to Cairo for sale for sale and purchase as
openly as a butcher buys grass-fed lambs and
drives them to the shambles to be slaughtered,
devoured, and forgotten. Such was the fate
of those eleven children.
Strong man though I am and I have seen a
good deal of the rough wrays
and places of life
I turned from that shed sick at heart and
with a sense of shame and horror. The click
of the lock that kept the youngsters prisoners
echoed in my mind for days, and re-echoes
still.
1
"They are not Angles, but Angels."