S. Baring-Gould

“ But Basil prayed, "Christ is my light, and Jesus is my hope, a calm port in tempest. I give Thee thanks, Lord God of my fathers, because thou hast saved my soul from the abyss; keep Thy Name inviolate in me, and make me an heir of eternal quiet, for the promise made unto my fathers by the great High Priest, Jesus Christ, our Lord; through whom I pray Thee receive my spirit into peace, persevering in my confession; for Thou art merciful and long-suffering and full of compassion; who livest and abidest through ages of ages. ”

“ The life of good cenobites, who obey their abbot in everything, and whose time is divided between prayer, work, and fasting is much to be admired. I know many among them whose souls are more pure, and their graces more exalted than mine; especially, and in the first rank my dear old Boswell, who received and trained me at Melrose in my youth."
Thus passed, in that dear solitude, and among these friendly surroundings, eight pleasant years, the sweetest of his life, and precisely those during which all Northumberland was convulsed by the struggle between Wilfrid and the new king Egfrid. ”

“ His parents had an honest competence; and, after the example of their fathers, they adhered stedfastly to the true and ancient faith, respected the laws of their country, and brought up their children in piety and virtue. They tended their flocks with unwearied care; and, after a life of tranquility, fell asleep in God, full of confidence; for they had walked before Him, like the patriarchs, to the borders of Jordan. The young Nicolas grew up beneath their salutary tutelage, and manifested always an obedient spirit and a love of virtue; gentle and pious even from the days of his childhood. ”

“ Saturus, smiling at the curiosity of those that came to see them, said to them, "Will not to-morrow suffice to satisfy your inhuman curiosity? However you may seem now to pity us, to-morrow you will clap your hands at our death, and applaud our murderers. But observe well our faces, that you may know them again at that terrible day when all men shall be judged." They spoke with such courage and intrepidity that they astonished the infidels, and occasioned the conversion of several among them. The day of their triumph having come, they went out of the prison to the amphitheatre full of joy. ”

“ Lord, who didst create the whole world, who from Adam till this present, and hereafter till endless ages, keepest those that love Thee, and glorifiest those that fear Thee! Lord Jesus Christ! hear the prayer of Thy servant, and be present with me at this hour, and destroy this deaf, and dumb, and blind, and senseless idol; break and dissolve this god made with hands, and shew to these heathen the madness of their worship, and Whom we worship and adore as God. ”

“ Want and sickness were turning Rome into a charnel house. Wild voices were screaming for bread on every side. The streets were encumbered by the victims of the plague. The ruin of private property, the general penury occasioned by the extortion of Ladislas, and the sacking of Rome by his soldiers, had cut off almost all the resources of private charity. Francesca, bereaved of everything but her one little girl, and lodged with Vannozza in a corner of their dismantled house, had no longer at her command the resources she had formerly possessed for the relief of the poor. ”

“ There was a Samaritan woman named Eudocia, of great beauty, who lived as a harlot, in the city of Heliopolis, in Phœnicia. She had amassed much wealth by her shameful mode of life, and she thought only of how she might gratify the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. But the word of God is like a hammer that breaketh the rocks in pieces. ”

“ Authority, morals, laws, sciences, arts, religion herself, might have been supposed condemned to irremediable ruin. The germs of a splendid and approaching revival were still hidden from all eyes under the ruins of a crumbling world. The Church was more than ever infected by heresy, schisms, and divisions, which the obscure successors of S. Leo the Great in the Holy See endeavoured in vain to repress. In all the ancient Roman world there did not exist a prince who was not either a pagan, an Arian, or an Eutychian. ”

“ Twilight had settled over the great plain, and all men waited for the red flame to shoot up on Tarah hill, a signal that the festival was begun, and that all might rekindle their hearth fires from the consecrated blaze. But a spark shone out far away on the plain, from the tent of Patrick, and consternation at this sacrilege and infringement of precedent became general. The king at once galloped to Slane, followed by a crowd, and accompanied by two priests, who assured him that unless this fire were extinguished, it would overpower their fires, and bring the kingdom to its downfall. ”

“ Rising betimes in the morning, Francesca devoutly said her prayers, made her meditations, and read attentively out of a spiritual book. In the course of the day, whenever she had a moment's leisure, she withdrew into a church, or into her own room, and gave herself up to prayer. At the same time, so devout a life in a young person of twelve years old could not fail to attract the attention and draw down the censures of the worldly. Many such began to laugh at Francesca, and to turn her piety into ridicule. ”

“ For his disciples were gathered not from one tribe only, but were the flower of all the neighbouring nations; they were enlightened with wondrous gentleness and spiritual joy, and joined into one body, because they were begotten in charity of one spiritual father, and of the one mother of all. "Some were of noble Frank families; some were English; some of the new planting of God begun amongst the Frisians and Saxons; some of the Baquarii and the Suevi; some of whatever nation God hath sent thither: of all these I, Ludger am the least, yea, the weakest and most insignificant." ”

“ S. Hilary replied, "From my childhood I have learnt to sacrifice to the living God, and to worship Jesus Christ with pure heart; I cannot worship demons." The governor said, "Christ, whom thou sayest that thou worshippest, was crucified by the Jews." Hilary replied, "If thou knewest the virtue of His cross, thou wouldest leave the error of idols, and adore Him who would heal the wounds of thy soul." "Come," exclaimed the governor, "do as I bid, or I will have thy tongue cut out." "Sir," answered the bishop, "do so, instead of threatening me." ”

“ Both pursued thus the way to Monte Cassino; the peasant on foot, with his hands tied behind his back, urged on by the blows and taunts of the Goth, who followed on horseback, an image only too faithful of the two races which unhappy Italy enclosed within her distracted bosom, and which were to be judged and reconciled by the unarmed majesty of monastic goodness. When they had reached the summit of the mountain they perceived the abbot seated alone, reading at the door of his monastery. "Behold," said the prisoner turning to his tyrant, "there is the Father Benedict of whom I told thee." ”

“ He was the means of restoring large numbers of those who had been taught by the Arians to disbelieve in the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father to full Catholic faith, thereby exasperating the heretics against him. He was one of those fiery enthusiasts of resistless energy, uncompromising with himself and others, a type as needful as the soft and gentle saint, winning through love. The burning faith of Basil carried him dauntless into danger, and made him regardless of opposition, and those spirits which looked to a strong nature for support found a rock in Basil. ”

“ Then Macarius cried out to the proconsul, "I charge this fellow with making sedition in the city, stirring up the people to overthrow our altars and defy the emperor." "Who art thou," asked Saturninus, "who art so audacious as to do these things?" Basil replied, "I am the best of everything,—a Christian."
"Then why, if thou art a Christian, dost not thou behave as a Christian?" "I do," answered Basil; "it behoves every Christian to make bare all acts." ”

“ Rainald said, "One thing I know of him, that it was not human talent, but prayer, which was the secret of his great success. This was his daily prayer: 'Grant me, I beseech Thee, O merciful God, prudently to study, rightly to understand, and perfectly to fulfil that which is pleasing to Thee, to the praise and glory of Thy Name.'" When a child, if conversation did not turn on God, or on matters which tended to edification, the Angelical Doctor would go away; he used to wonder how men, especially religious men, could talk of anything but God or holy things. ”

“ The tender solicitude he bore to souls was on the point of separating him from his dear monastery and from Rome. Seeing one day exhibited in the market some poor pagan children, of extraordinary beauty and fairness, who were said to be of the country of the Angles, "Not Angles," said he, "but Angels." Then hastening to the pope, he begged him to send missionaries into that great island of Britain, where the pagans sold such slaves; failing others, he offered himself for this work, surprised the pontiff into consent, and prepared instantly for his departure. ”

“ And he prayed, "God, who art alone and true, with thine only-begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit; who art invisible, incomprehensible, whom none can describe and include, who art good and merciful, and acceptest not the person of man, who createst the things that are out of that which is not, and enlightenest us who sat in darkness, and gavest us the bright knowledge of Thy deity: Thou art the helper of all them that trust in Thee. ”

“ When he walks at my side his feet are never soiled by the mud of the streets, or the dust of the roads."
The presence of her heavenly guide was to her as a mirror, in which she could see reflected every imperfection of her character. Much as she had discerned, even from her earliest childhood, of the corruption of her heart, yet she often told her director that it was only since she had been continually in the presence of an angelic companion that she had realised its amount. So that this divine favour, far from exalting her in her own eyes, served to maintain her in the deepest humility. ”

“ Throughout all England the rumour spread, that on a desert rock of the Northumbrian coast there lived a solitary who was the friend of God, and skilled346 in the healing of human suffering. In this expectation no one was deceived; no man carried back from the sea-beaten island the same burden of suffering, temptation, or remorse which he had taken there. Cuthbert had consolation for all troubles, light for all the sorrowful mysteries of life, counsel for all its perils, a helping hand to all the hopeless, a heart open to all who suffered. ”

“ The love which S. Enda bore towards his holy pupil, for his many and wonderful virtues, made their parting singularly painful to them both. For a time the holy abbot felt as if the angels of God were leaving Aran with Kieran, and he could find no relief for his anguish but in prayer. The sternness of religious discipline had not crushed but chastened the tenderness of an affectionate disposition in S. Enda. The entire community of the island shared the sorrow that had come on their venerable abbot. ”

“ He was not content merely to surpass all the other monks in his devotion to the four principal occupations of monastic life—study, prayer, vigil, and manual labour—but speedily applied himself to the work of casting out from the hearts of the surrounding population the last vestiges of pagan superstition. Not a village was so distant, not a mountain side so steep, not a village so poor, that it escaped his zeal. He sometimes passed weeks, and even months, out of his monastery, preaching to and confessing the rustic population of the mountains. ”

“ Then Philostratus looked at the sordid room, and the horsehair cover thrown over the pallet bed, and the haggard cheeks and sunken eyes of his former mistress, and he burst forth into entreaties that she would leave this wretched life of constant self-watching and self-denial, and return to the gaiety of city life, smart gowns, and pearl necklaces, costly feasts, and obsequious admirers. "All Heliopolis awaits thee," he urged, "ready once more to lavish on thee its gold and its adulation; return once more to the raptures and liberty of a life of pleasure." ”

“ Once, as Antony and some of his guests were discoursing on spiritual matters, Paul asked very simply, "Were the prophets before Jesus Christ, or Jesus Christ before the prophets?" Then Antony reddened, and bade him keep in the background, and hold his tongue. Now Paul at once obeyed, and remained for some time silent, and out of sight, and they told Antony of it. Then he said, "Oh, my brethren! learn from this man what our obedience towards God ought to be. If I say anything, he does it instantly and cheerfully, and we—do we thus behave towards our God?" ”

“ The citizens heaped up their fires, and gathered closer around them. The soldiers canvassed the constancy of the sufferers. There, on the frozen pool, stood the martyrs of Jesus Christ. From the open door of the hut, a bright cheerful gleam of fire-light shone; reflecting itself on the clear dark ice. Some presently fell, and slept that sleep which ends only in death; some walked hurriedly up and down, as if to keep in the heat of life; some stood with their arms folded, almost lost in prayer ”