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MARTYRDOM AND BURIAL.

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Clemens Romanus, who saith, 'St. Paul preached righteousness through the whole world, and in so doing went to the utmost bounds of the West' (Epist. ad Corinth.); which necessarily includeth the British Islands, as is plain to those who knew how the phrase, 'the utmost bounds of the West,' was used by the historians and poets of those times."*

Upon St. Paul's return to Rome, about the eighth or ninth year of the reign of Nero, he is said to have drawn. upon himself the fury of that cruel Emperor, either by joining with St. Peter in procuring the fall of Simon Magus, or by effecting the conversion of one of Nero's female favourites. The Apostle was apprehended, tried, and sentenced to death. As a Roman citizen, he might have claimed-unless his crimes were assumed to have been of a most heinous and aggravated kind—exemption from the preliminary torture of the scourge; although Cardinal Baronius relates that in one of the churches of Rome, the pillars were long afterwards exhibited to which both St. Peter and St. Paul were said to have been bound whilst they were scourged. On his way to execution the holy Apostle was the means of converting no fewer than three of his guard; and these men, within a few days after, by the Emperor's order, became martyrs for the faith. The place of St. Paul's execution was the Aquæ Salviæ, at a distance of three miles from Rome, where, after some time spent in solemn preparation, he cheerfully gave his neck to the fatal stroke. As a Roman, he might

not be put to the servile and opprobrious death of crucifixion; and he therefore suffered decapitation, which was considered a more noble form of execution. St. Paul was buried in the Via Ostiensis, about two miles from Rome; and over his grave, about A.D. 318, Constantine the Great, at the instance of Silvester, Bishop of Rome, built a stately church, which he adorned with superb

*Nelson's Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England.

gifts, and enriched with noble endowments. The Emperor Theodosius, however, thought this church too mean for the memory of so great an Apostle, and caused it to be taken down, and another, more noble and magnificent still, to be erected on its site.

As the Apostle of the Gentiles, St. Paul has naturally been very highly and very widely venerated. In the old English calendar, as still in the Roman, his Nativity as a martyr was observed, jointly with that of St. Peter, on the 29th of June; his Conversion being kept in them, as in the present English calendar, on the 25th of January. His association with St. Peter was based upon the supposed fellowship of the two Apostles in their death, which, say some writers, took place on the same day and in the same year; whilst others, cleaving to the identity of the day, interpose an interval of one or more years between the two martyrdoms. "Certainly," says Dr. Cave, "if St. Paul suffered not at the very same time with St. Peter, it could not be long after, not above a year, at most. The best is, which of them soever started first, they both came at last to the same end of the race: to those palms and crowns which are reserved for all good men in Heaven, but most eminently for the martyrs of the Christian faith."*

St. Paul offers many attractions to the Christian muse, whether we have regard to his character, which was so noble and so manifold; to his life, which was so picturesque and so eventful; to his boldness, which was so constant and so uncalculating; to his sympathies, which were so ready and so catholic; to his sufferings, which were so numerous and so severe; or to his teaching, which was so powerful and so profound. Yet it remains that his conversion is the critical event of his life, as it is the theme of his festival; for on his conversion depends all his succeeding exploits and experiences. As Innocent III. puts it, in

* Cave's Antiquitates Apostolicæ; Life of St. Paul.

DR. MONSELL'S POEM..

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the Epistle to which we have already alluded :—“ The glorious passion of St. Paul would have been impossible, unless his conversion had first been effected." We conclude our remarks upon a festival in honour of an event which to cultivated minds ranks among the dearest of the historical evidences of Christianity, with a 'poem on the "Conversion of St. Paul," by Dr. Monsell, in whose volume of "Spiritual Songs" it occurs.

Saviour, when our souls would trace
All the wonders of Thy Grace,
And by sweet experience prove

How, through the power of mighty love,
Hardened hearts perverse and proud,

Can before thy cross be bowed,

Be Thy great Apostle Paul
Type and Teacher of it all!

Greater difference cannot be,

Than in Saul and Paul we see ;

He who Christ and Christ's abhorred-
Lowly breathes-" Who art Thou, Lord?"

He-who calmly stood and owned

Those who holy Stephen stoned—

Trembling and astonished too,

Sighs, "What wilt Thou have me do?”

Grace his soul with blessings reaches;
He, who persecuted, preaches;
He, who with the bigot's rod
Chastened once the Church of God,
Takes up now the insulted Cross,
Counts as nought its shame and loss,

And, before he lays it down,
Wins a martyr's palm and crown!

Such God's glorious power of old!

And the story still is told
Every year, that brings again

This high festival to men ;

These glad tidings to proclaim,
Jesus Christ is still the same,
Still the same, He changes never,
Yesterday, to-day, for ever!

That, which humbled to the knee,
The proud-hearted Pharisee-
That, which pardoned all the wrong,
He had done to Christ so long-
That, which with its soft control
Soothed to love his stubborn soul-
Still remains; it changes never!
Yesterday, to-day, for ever!

Blessed Saviour, when we stray,
Meet us on our will-ward way,
Meet, and plead with us, till we
Yield, repent, and turn to Thee,
And beneath the beaming grace
Of Thy reconciled face,
Like the great Apostle, prove
Converts to Thy gentle love.

[graphic]

The Pregentation of Christ

IN THE TEMPLE,

COMMONLY CALLED

THE PURIFICATION OF ST. MARY THE VIRGIN.

FEBRUARY 2.

HERE have been celebrated, with more or less of universality, at least half-a-dozen festivals in commemoration of events connected with the

Blessed Virgin. Of these, four are mentioned by Durandus, with the remark that a holiday in honour of Mary occurred in each of the four quarters of the year, to wit, her Annunciation, Assumption, Nativity, and Purification; to which list may be added her Visitation and Conception. The observance of the last-mentioned festival was of ancient date in the Eastern Church, and became obligatory in that communion about the middle of the twelfth century; although in the Western Church it required three hundred years more to advance to the same degree of universality. Its introduction into Britain has been inconclusively referred to St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, about the year 1150; whilst by the eighth statute of the Council of Oxford, A.D. 1222, its celebration, which occurs December 8th, was expressly left without authoritative sanction to the option of the faithful.*

* "Statuimus quod festa subscripta sub omni veneratione serventur, videlicet * * * * omnia festa Beatæ Mariæ, præter festum Conceptionis, cujus celebrationi non imponitur necessitas." Labbeus, Sacrosancta Concilia.

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