shrinkingly. It began by the spectacle of One whose lacerated limbs were stretched on the cross for hours in the sight of a gazing multitude: it was accomplished in that passion repeated through centuries on a number which has passed beyond all human enumeration, but is stored up in unsleeping remembrance, to be produced one day in the most awful of assemblies. The suffering of the martyrs, as embraced by them voluntarily, had its only adequate motive in the sufferings of their Master; and by the suffering of the martyrs the heathen world reached at length to know the value of our human life as the seed-plot of eternity, after it had grown worthless in their eyes as an opportunity for sensual or intellectual enjoyment. It is strict truth to say that man learnt not to shed the blood of man because the blood of the Son of God had been shed. Let us not suppose that regard for human life rests on any other basis than belief in man's future destiny, or would survive the extinction of that belief.

Again, in the age of Augustus Cæsar no virtue had become so rare and so little esteemed as the virtue of moral purity. In that large portion of mankind on which the ban of slavery lay, it was almost impossible to be exercised. That the slave of either sex could have any sense of chastity, was a thought that would seem never to have occurred to a Roman master. The slave's body was as

But

much his master's property as his labour. slavery was every where, with all its consequences; and it must never be forgotten in the estimate of these consequences that this was a slavery of races equal to their masters in all physical qualities. The slave was not then first and chiefly a beast of burden, as he is in the production of cotton: Afra and Syra, Lyde and Citheris, were first of all instruments of licentiousness; and Sporus is there as well. A heathen household is a sink of impurity into which we must not venture to enter. Suffice it to say that with the dignity of man's soul that of his body was lost, when the Christian faith exalted the body as well as the soul to be the temple of the Spirit of God. But how was such a doctrine to pass into man's flesh and blood? Recur in thought a moment to ancient Rome when she sat a queen, and think how that poison of voluptuousness ran through every vein of her blood. The myriads of statues that crowned her public places, of pictures that coloured her halls and galleries, which of them did not breathe sensuality into the beholder? Her baths, which rose as palaces of the fine arts in every quarter, for what sensual enjoyment did they not offer the readiest means at the cheapest cost? Who could worship the Roman gods and be pure? For her gods in exhibiting consecrated every lust; and Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Mercury surpassed even Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian in their sins against purity. Who could attempt to purify such a city?

Who but one, the Son of the Virgin? Was it not a task worthy of Him who breathed into His Mother such a love of purity, that she scrupled to accept the offer of a dignity before which the crowns of earth sink into nothing, until it was revealed to her that her virgin estate was compatible with that dignity? Yet even for the Virgin-born to bring a clean thing out of an unclean is a task of the greatest power. If this new virtue spring from His divine Person, which alone supports it adequately, and gives it a reason for being, yet to human nature, spoiled, impoverished, and degraded, it is an immense step from theory to practice. He is the King of virgins as well as the King of martyrs; but who were to follow Him, and how? How was this flood of impurity to be rolled back, and the grace of chastity to appear the purest and the most radiant gem in the crown of a restored humanity? He chose the seemingly weakest and frailest to be fellow-workers with Him, by whose aid He would condescend to accomplish this result. I will quote three instances as specimens of a thousand others. In the city of Alexandria there was a female slave of remarkable beauty. As a matter of course the eye of her master fell on her; but she was a Christian, and all solicitations failed with her. Then he accused her to the

prefect as a Christian, promising him a large bribe if he could induce her, through dread of punishment for her faith, to yield to his desires. But

the threat, and even the application of torture, proved as ineffectual as had been the flattery of her master. At last the judge threatened to have her thrown into a caldron of boiling pitch unless she would obey her master. She replied, "God forbid that a judge should be so unjust as to order me to do what is unlawful!" Then the prefect in a rage bade her be stripped of her clothes and thrown into the pitch. But Potamiana cried out, "I conjure you by the life of the emperor not to strip me naked; rather have me let down by degrees into the pitch with my dress, and you shall see what patience Jesus Christ, my God, whom you know not, gives me." This was done: she was let down inch by inch into the boiling pitch, and her martyrdom lasted three hours, until it reached her neck. Here, then, was a slave who ventured to be chaste; who sacrificed her life for purity's sake. But if Alexandria had her Potamiana among slaves, Rome had her Agnes among the daughters of senators. Who does not know the story of the Divine Bridegroom preferred to the human, though he were the son of the prefect of Rome; the rage of the disappointed suitor; and the maiden of thirteen threatened in vain with tortures, and with worse, and the angel standing before her in the place of shame? The glory of Agnes, like that of Potamiana, was the triumph of spotless virgin innocence; the unclouded preference of a youthful soul for the Divine Lover. But the annals of the

Church, in the same persecution as that of Agnes, contain a victory not indeed more glorious, for that is impossible, but perhaps more touching-the victory of a soul once steeped in pollution, yet winning itself a place beside Agnes and Potamiæna. Afra had been devoted by her mother, a native of Cyprus, to the worship of Venus from her youth up, a worship which consisted in the utmost moral degradation. In a time of persecution the Bishop Narcissus with his deacon had entered her house, not knowing what her course of life was. By him she was converted, together with her mother and her three attendants, the partners of her sin. Like Rahab she concealed her guests from the persecutors who sought them; and some time after, when leading a life of penance, she herself was arrested and brought before the judge. The judge, whose name was Gaius, knew who she was, and said, "Sacrifice to the gods; it is better to live than to die in torments." Afra replied, "I was a great sinner before I knew God; but I will not add new crimes, nor do what you command me." Gaius said, "Go to the temple and sacrifice." Afra answered, "My temple is Jesus Christ, whom I have always before my eyes. Every day I confess my sins; and because I am unworthy to offer Him any sacrifice, I desire to sacrifice myself for His name, that this body in which I have sinned may be purified and sacrificed to Him by torments." "I am informed,”