When anybody was anxious for his friend, or feared that he might lose the love of his friend, or was afraid that he might not have strength to perform his duty as friend--then he would go to church to implore help from the good saints Amicus and Amelius.

But of course it was all a mistake--a mistake which lasted until the end of the seventeenth century! Then somebody called the attention of the Church to the unmistakable fact that Amicus and Amelius were merely inventions of some mediaeval romancer.

Then the Church made investigation, and greatly shocked, withdrew from the list of its saints those long-loved names of Amicus and Amelius--a reform in which I cannot help thinking the Church made a very serious mistake.

What matter whether those shadowy figures represented original human lives or only human dreams?
They were beautiful, and belief in them made men think beautiful thoughts, and the imagined help from them had comforted many thousands of hearts.

It would have been better to have left them alone; for that matter, how many of the existent lives of saints are really true?
Nevertheless the friends are not dead, though expelled from the heaven of the Church.