will be done!" His wish was heard, not his prayer. His fever lay upon him; during the trial he continued his devotions as usual, causing himself to be laid in sackcloth and ashes. On his disciples asking to be allowed to place straw under him instead, he made answer, "Sons, it becomes a Christian to die in ashes. Did I set other example, I should sin myself." They wished to turn him on his side, to ease his position; but he expressed a wish to see heaven rather than earth, that his spirit might, as it were, be setting out on its journey. It is said, that on this he saw the evil spirit at his side; and he addressed him in words expressive of his assurance, that his Lord's merits were fully imparted to him, and his soul perfected. "Beast of blood," he exclaimed, "why standest thou here? Deadly one, thou shalt find nothing in me; Abraham's bosom is receiving me." With these words he died.

At this time Sulpicius his biographer was away, apparently at Toulouse. One morning a friend had just departed from him; he was sitting alone in his cell, thinking of the future and the past, his sins, and the last judgment. "My limbs," he writes to the friend. who had thus left him, "being wearied by the anguish of my mind, I laid them down on my bed, and, as is customary in sorrow, fell into a sleep; the sleep of the morning hours, light and broken, and taking but wavering and doubtful possession of the limbs, when one seems, contrary to the nature of deep slumber, to be almost awake in one's sleep. Then suddenly I seem to myself to see holy Martin, the bishop, clad in a white robe, with face like a flame, eyes like stars, and glittering hair; and, while his person was what I had known it to be, yet, what can hardly be expressed, I could not look at him, though I could recognise him. He slightly smiled on me, and bore in his right hand the book which I had written of his life. I embrace his sacred knees, and ask the blessing as usual; and feel the soft touch of his hand on my head, while, together with the usual words of blessing, he repeats the name of the cross, familiar in his mouth: next, while I gaze upon him, and cannot take my fill of his face and look, suddenly he is caught aloft, till, after

completing the immense spaces of the air, I following with my eyes the swift cloud that carried him, he is received into the open heaven, and can be seen no more. Not long after, I see the holy presbyter Clare, his disciple, who had lately died, ascending after his master. I, shameless one, desire to follow; while I set about it, and strain after lofty steps, I wake up, and, shaking off my sleep, begin to rejoice in the vision, when a boy, who was with me, enters sadder than usual, with a speaking and sorrowful countenance : 'Why so sad and eager to speak?' say I: 'Two monks,' he answers, ‘are just come from Tours; they bring the news that Martin is departed.' I was overcome, I confess; my tears burst forth, I wept abundantly. Even now while I write, my brother, my tears are flowing, nor is any comfort adequate to this most unruly grief. However, when the news came, I felt a wish that you should be partner in my grief, who were companion in my love. Come then to me at once, that we may mourn together, whom we love together; although I am aware that such a man is not really to be mourned, who, after conquering and triumphing over the world, has at length received the crown of righteousness."— Ep. 2.

This letter is written to a private friend, at the time of St. Martin's death, as appears on the face of it; the memoirs of the saint are written with equal earnestness and simplicity. They were circulated throughout Christendom, with astonishing rapidity: but the miraculous accounts they contained were a difficulty with great numbers. Accordingly, in the last of his publications, Sulpicius gave the names of living witnesses in corroboration of his own statements. "Far be such suspicion," he adds, "from any one who lives under God's eye; for Martin does not need support from fictions; however, I open before thee, O Christ, the fidelity of my whole narrative, that I have neither said, nor will say, ought but that I have either seen myself, or have ascertained from plain authorities, or for the most part from his own mouth."-Dial. iii. 5.

Martin was buried at Tours, and two thousand of his monks attended the funeral. He was more than eighty

years old at the time of his death, out of which he had been Bishop twenty-five. Some say that he died on a Sunday, at midnight. His festival in our calendar, as in the Latin Church, is placed on the 11th of November, the day either of his death or of his burial. His remains were preserved in his episcopal city, till the latter days, when the Huguenots seized and burned them. Some bones, however, are said still to remain.

Chapter xxi

Martin and Priscillian

"Destroy him not; for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless? As the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall descend into battle, and perish."

SI began, so will I end, with a story of a bishop and a king; but with this addition, that, as in the former case, Ambrose showed how a Christian might be persecuted, so, in this, Martin, and Ambrose too, shall show how a Christian may not persecute. Persecution, indeed, has a variety of meanings, some persons thinking themselves ipso facto persecuted, when men in power merely refuse to adopt and promote their opinions. What I mean here by persecution will be clear as I proceed.

The sovereign with whom Martin came in contact was Maximus, the usurper of Britain, Gaul, and Spain, of whom we have already heard in the history of St. Ambrose. Gratian becoming unpopular, Maximus had been proclaimed emperor by the soldiers in Britain, had landed on the opposite coast with a great portion of the British nation (who emigrated on the occasion, and settled afterwards in Bretagne), and had been joined by the armies of Gaul. Gratian had fled from Paris to Lyons, attended by only 300 horse; the governor of the Lyonese had played the traitor, and Maximus's general of horse had come up and murdered the emperor. The usurper incurred, not unjustly, the stigma of the crime by which he profited, though he protested, whether truly or not, that he was not privy to the intentions of his subordinate. He was equally

earnest, and perhaps sincere, in maintaining that he had been proclaimed by the legions of Britain against his will. So much Sulpicius confirms, speaking of him as "a man to be named for every excellence of life, if it had been allowed him either to refuse a diadem placed upon him, not legitimately, by a mutinous soldiery, or to abstain from civil war;" "but," he continues, “a great sway could neither be refused without hazard, nor be held without arms.”—Dial. ii. 7.

Maximus established his court at Treves, and thither proceeded a number of bishops to intercede, as in duty bound, for criminals, captives, exiles, proscribed persons, and others whom the civil commotion had involved. Martin went up with the rest, and it soon became obvious to the world that there was some vast difference between him and them; that they allowed themselves in flattery and subserviency towards the usurper, but that Martin recollected that he had the authority of an Apostle, and was bound to treat the fortunate soldier not according to his success, but according to his conduct. In this behaviour he had been anticipated by St. Ambrose, shortly before, who, on his former embassy to Maximus from Justina, had refused to communicate with him, or with those bishops who had communicated with him.

It was Martin's office to give this military sovereign a second lesson of the spirit of that religion, which, being from heaven, knows not the distinctions between man and man. Maximus asked him, again and again, to the imperial table, but in vain; he declined, "alleging," according to Sulpicius, "that he could not partake in the hospitality of one who had deprived one emperor of his dominions, another of his life." “However,” continues our biographer, "when Maximus declared that he had not of his own will assumed the imperial power; that he had but defended in arms that forced sovereignty which the troops had, by a Divine Providence, imposed on him; that God's favour did not seem estranged from one who had gained such incredible success; and that he had killed no enemy, except in the field: at length, overcome either by his arguments or his prayers, he came to supper, the emperor rejoicing wonderfully that he had prevailed with him."-Vit. M. 23.