Saint Martin of Tours

“ How will it be with us sinful ones, since the guileful devil
thought to hurt so illustrious a priest?'
Then the archdeacon sent forthwith to Tours,
to Martin's episcopal see, and bade enquire concerning him;
then it was truly told him that he had given up his soul
at the same hour in which they had heard the song.
LIV. On the very same day Ambrose the bishop,
in the city of Milan, when he was standing at mass,
fell asleep, even as God willed,
and no man durst readily awake him ”

“ Amongst its advocates were some of the greatest men of the age. Basil and Athanasius, Augustine and Jerome, Ambrose and Martin, and many besides, vied with one another in extolling the virtues of what was called the 'religious' life, and in inducing men and women to follow its rule.
The movement was at its height when Christianity was first preached in Ireland. Saint Martin had already founded his famous establishments at Tours and Poictiers. Tradition says that Saint Patrick was for a time an inmate of one of these monasteries. ”

“ Martin on the mind of Christendom,—is, very absolutely, the business of every rational being in any Christian realm.
You are to understand, then, first of all, that the especial character of St. Martin is a serene and meek charity to all creatures. He is not a preaching saint—still less a persecuting one: not even an anxious one. Of his prayers we hear little—of his wishes, nothing. What he does always, is merely the right thing at the right [Pg 16] moment;—rightness and kindness being in his mind one: an extremely exemplary saint, to my notion. ”

“ With a thousand wily arts did the treacherous devil
strive in some way to deceive the holy man,
and he showed himself visible in divers phantasms
to the saint, in the appearance of the gods of the heathen;
sometimes in Jove's form, who is called Thor,
sometimes in Mercury's who is called Odin,
sometimes in that of Venus, the foul goddess,
whom men call Fricg; and into many other shapes
the devil transformed himself in the bishop's sight.
Against this Martin always marked himself
with the sign of the cross, and sang his office,
remaining undismayed, and ever trusting in God. ”

“ Every three years, the people of our village give in the little chapel ‘The Miracle of Saint Martin.’”
There was a long silence. Martin sat, his face buried in his hands. The pastor spoke again.
“Martin! Free yourself of this horror; let Hope in. Life is knocking at your door with gifts of fulfillment!” ”

“ Martin’s to elect and to have their own bishop, is printed (from Baluz) in Gallia Christiana, vol. xiv, p. 7 of the Instrumenta relating to Tours. The date is 786. The licence is addressed to Abbat Autherius, that is, Itherius. It sets forth that by royal and papal privileges the Abbey of St. Martin of Tours was in all respects independent of the episcopal authority of the bishop of Tours; [213] whatsoever in the flock of St. Martin needed arranging, ruling, or correcting, was a [229] matter for the abbat, provost, dean, and other most approved men. ”

“ That night he heard Jesus address the angels: "Martin, as yet only a catechumen has clothed me with his garment." After leaving the army he became a hermit, and, subsequently, bishop of Tours. He lived for years just outside of Tours in a cell made of interlaced branches. His monks dwelt around him in caves cut out of scarped rocks, overlooking a beautiful stream. They were clad in camel's hair and lived on a diet of brown bread, sleeping on a straw couch. ”

“ One night, a night like this in the woods where holiness dwelt, something stirred within him—a voice clear, beautiful, said wonderful things which gave his soul wings.”
“Yes! that happens sometimes, a voice from within,” said Martin.
“He left the band, made his way to the church and begged to be taken in. He was rarely gifted; the monks saw in him the white fervor of the saint. The Lord had changed the murderous rage of the robber into the divine madness of the fanatic. He went to Einsiedeln and there, it was said, heard the voice of God, who commanded him to become a monk. ”

“ He brings to life a catechumen, who had died without being baptized, in his monastery at Ligugé, near Poitiers.—5. At the same place he recalls to life a slave, who is first represented as hung from a gibbet, and afterwards standing on the ground and giving him thanks.—6. St. Martin consecrated Bishop of Tours in 371.—7. He evokes the spectre of a pretended martyr, held in veneration about Tours, and when it appears and avows that it had been executed for its crimes, the chapel is demolished.—8. He gives his tunic to a poor man.—9. ”

“ He was soon perfectly at ease, and complimented Madame Martin on the elegance of her travelling attire.
"Excuse me, ladies," he added, "I was afraid I should be late. I went to six o'clock mass at Saint Severin, my parish, in the Virgin Chapel, under those pretty, but absurd columns that point toward heaven though frail as reeds-like us, poor sinners that we are."
"Ah," said Madame Martin, "you are pious to-day." ”

“ He finally became a priest and held a small benefice at Thuir, but he never lost sight of the chapel of St. Martin—a saint to whom he had special devotion—and he would have become a hermit here had it not been for the opposition of his superiors. On the 12th of January, 1637, during a visit at his brother’s in Camelas, while saying the rosary in the evening, he felt suddenly inspired to take immediate measures for the restoration of the chapel. But there were many obstacles. He was himself very poor, as he tells us, and the people around were equally so. ”

“ To return to S. Martin, the legend relates that when he was entering Paris, as Bishop of Tours, he met a wretched leper at the gate, and, filled with compassion and love, he embraced him, and thus healed him of his leprosy. This was the act which King Henri I. commemorated by founding the priory in 1060. His son Philippe I. dedicated the church in 1067, placing the new foundation under the patronage of the abbot of Cluny, of which monastery S. Martin des Champs was the third daughter. ”

“ You will remember how Our Lord specially promised that His faithful followers, in the years to come, should do miracles like He had done, and even greater ones. Well, St. Martin was one of the men who showed that Our Lord's promise was fulfilled. All the men to whom the Church has given the title "Saint" have done wonderful miracles, that God's name might be glorified and people see that "with God all things are possible." ”

“ In the hundred and sixtieth year after that holy and praiseworthy man, the blessed bishop Martin, was taken up to heaven, when the holy bishop Eufronius was governing the church of Tours in his seventh year, and in the second year of the glorious king Sigibert, I became ill with malignant pimples and fever, and being unable to eat or drink I was reduced to such a state that I lost all hope of the present life and thought of nothing but of the details of my burial. For death was constantly raging at me, eager to separate my soul from my body. ”

“ Martin IV. (Simon Mompitié de Brion) , pope from the 22nd of February 1281 to the 28th of March 1285, should have been named Martin II. He was born about 1210 in Touraine. He became a priest at Rouen and canon of St Martin’s at Tours, and was made chancellor of France by Louis IX. in 1260 and cardinal-priest of Sta Cecilia by Urban IV. in 1261. As papal legate in France he held several synods for the reformation of the clergy and conducted the negotiations for the assumption of the crown of Sicily by Charles of Anjou. ”

“ St Martin, the great apostle of the Gauls, was bishop of Tours in the 4th century, and he was buried in a suburb which soon became as important as the town itself from the number of pilgrims who flocked to his tomb. Towards the end of the 4th century, apprehensive of barbarian inva sion, the inhabitants pulled down some of their earlier buildings in order to raise a fortified wall, the course of which can still be traced in places. ”

“ But to Martin the mysterious soothing music of the mass, like strains from another world, so unlike earthly tunes, came like a new sense, an inspiration from an unknown realm, and brought the unbidden tears to his young eyes.
It must not be supposed that he was totally ignorant of the elements of religion; even the wild inhabitants of the forest crave some form of approach to God, and from time to time a wandering priest, an outlaw himself of English birth, ministered to the “merrie men” at a rustic altar, generally in the open air or in a well-known cavern. ”

“ So Martin ordered them to bring the man to him,
but no man durst go to the possessed one,
because he wondrously foamed at the mouth,
and attempted to tear every one who went in to him.
Then Tetradius himself came and sought the saint,
praying him humbly that he would go to the poor man.
Then said the holy man that he would not go to his house,
as he was a heathen man, and of evil life.
Then the heathen noble promised the holy man
that he would be a Christian if the boy became whole. ”

“ Then cried out the heathen with extreme astonishment,
and the monks wept for the wonderful joy;
and they all called upon the name of Christ with praise,
and all the people inclined to the faith.
So greatly were they converted by that miracle,
that through all that land they reared with faith
churches and monasteries; and Martin always,
wheresoever he overthrew idolatry, built churches.
XI. At one time also the holy man overthrew an idol,
and straightway he set fire to the devil's temple
so that it fell crackling with broad flame. ”

“ XXVIII. Martin came once at the time of midwinter
to a priest's house, and so they made his bed
in the monastery parlour, and a great fire was there lighted.
Then the priests desired to bed him worthily,
and bare much straw for his bedding,
and took no heed of the fire which was on the floor.
Afterward when the holy man came, then he threw all the straw
out of the bedding, because he oftenest lay
upon a hair-cloth on the bare floor. ”

“ He prevented that battle, that Martin's eyes
might in no way be stained by other men's death.
What other victory could our Lord
have given for His champion's sake better than that,
that no man should die, but that they should come to peace?
IV. Then Martin quitted, as he had long ago intended,
worldly warfare and went to the holy man
Hilary, the bishop, in the town
which is called Poitiers, because he was experienced
in God's faith and in good doctrine,
and abode thereafter with the man some while. ”

“ Then the holy man was not ruffled by his words,
but bade him wait for him there outside some while,
desiring that he should not know that he was naked;
then he clothed himself with the same garment,
and went to church and at once said mass.
At the very same mass three of the monks,
and one of the priests, and one of the nuns saw
above Martin's head as it were a burning globe,
so that the flame drew the hair far up,
and no more men might see this miracle. ”

“ Do you think, Madame Martin, that if Saint Francis of Assisi had been reasonable, he would have poured upon the earth, for the refreshment of peoples, the living water of charity and all the perfumes of love?"
"I do not know," replied Madame Martin; "but reasonable people have always seemed to me to be bores. I can say this to you, Monsieur Choulette."
They returned to Fiesole by the steam tramway which goes up the hill. The rain fell. Madame Marmet went to sleep and Choulette complained. ”

“ The incidents related in the tale must have occurred between 1530 and 1535. The Abbey of Saint- Martin-in-the-Fields stood on the site of the present Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris.—Ed.
In the city of Paris there was a Prior of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, whose name I will keep secret for the sake of the friendship I bore him. Until he reached the age of fifty years, his life was so austere that the fame of his holiness was spread throughout the entire kingdom, and there was not a prince or princess but showed him high honour when he came to visit them. ”

“ He might well be one of the favourite saints of France, and St. Martin of Tours rivalled St. Denys in the allegiance of the French, when kings and counts esteemed it an honour to belong to his chapter; and yet Martin occurs less frequently in French history than might have been expected, though it is to be found a good deal among the peasants, and is a surname. Dante speaks of Ser Martino as typical of the male gossips of Florence; and from the great prevalence of the surname of Martin in England, it would seem to have been more often given as a baptismal name. ”

“ Around him the tops of the forest trees
Waving, made the sign of the Cross
And muttered their benedicites.
The woods were God’s first temples; and even now where does one feel so alone with one’s Maker? How sweet the solemn silence! where the freed spirit, freed from external influences, can hold communion with its heavenly Father. So felt Martin. The very birds seemed to him to be singing carols; and the insects to join, with their hum, the universal hymn of praise.
Oh how the serpent lurks in Eden—beneath earthly beauty lies the mystery of pain and suffering. ”

“ The old monk was launched on an endless subject when he began with St. Martin.
“But, alas!” he sighed in conclusion, “times are changed. The ravages of the barbarians and the exactions of the Romans have impoverished us all; and now the frightful hordes of these savage Huns may be on us any day. Perhaps also we are poorer in ourselves; we care more for the splendour of our churches than for the poverty of our brothers. We want Martin’s poverty of spirit to make us rich as Martin to help and save. We want his love and faith before we can see the visions he saw. ”