REV. WILLIAM HUNTINGTON.
This late celebrated and popular preacher of Providence chapel, Gray’s Inn lane, London, worked for some time as a shoemaker, as he informs us, in his “Bank of Faith,” a work singularly curious and interesting.
CHAPTER IX.
CRISPIN ANECDOTES, ETC.
HAVING given, in the preceding chapter, biographical sketches of some of the sons of St. Crispin, who have risen from the last, to the first rank among their fellow-men, in the several departments of knowledge, we shall conclude this work with a few anecdotes, and such matters as are of interest to the craft in general.
Patron Saints of the Shoemakers.—Crispin and Crispianus were brethren, born at Rome, from which city they travelled to Soissons, in France, for the purpose of propagating the Christian religion, A. D., 303; and in order that they might not be chargeable to others for their maintenance, they exercised the trade of shoemakers; but Rectionarius, governor of the town, discovering them to be Christians, condemned them to be beheaded; hence they became the tutelar saints of the shoemakers.
The following singular passage with reference to the preservation of the relics of these saints, occurs in Lusius’s Acts of the Martyrs, where he notices the blessed Crispin and Crispianus. After their execution, their bodies, according to our author, were cast out to be devoured by dogs and birds of prey: nevertheless, being protected by the power of Christ, they suffered no harm. During the same night in which they were martyred, a certain indigent old man, who resided with his aged sister, was warned by an angel to take the bodies of these holy martyrs, and to deposite them, with all proper care, in a sepulchre. The old man, without hesitation, arose, and, accompanied by his venerable sister, went to the place where the bodies of the martyrs lay. As this was near the river Arona, they could easily, with the assistance of a small boat, have brought them to their own dwelling; this, however, on account of their poverty and infirmity, they were unable to procure, nor, indeed, had they any experience in the management of a vessel, which, moreover, must have been rowed against the current. When, however, after diligently searching in the dark, they at last found the precious corpses wholly uninjured—lo! they discovered a small boat close to the shore, and thereupon assuming courage immediately, they each took up a body, so staggering under the weight from weakness, that they appear not so much to carry their burdens as to be carried by them. Placing the bodies in the boat, they floated with great celerity against the current of the river, and, without the assistance of either rudder or oars, presently arrived at their own cottage; near to which, with equal secresy and joy, they interred the bodies of the deceased martyrs.
In Soissons, there are many churches and religious places dedicated to these saints. There is a tradition of their interment in England.