June 14 — Saints Vitus, Modestus, and Crescentia, Martyrs. ♦

One of the titles of this divine Spirit who is reigning so specially over this portion of the cycle, is the Witness of the Word. Thus was He announced to the world, by the Man-God himself, when about to quit it in order to return to his Father, after having, on his part, rendered his own great testimony to Sovereign Truth. Formed by the Holy Ghost on the type of Jesus Christ, the Faithful too are wit" nesses whose mission is to trample upon lying error, the enemy of God, by expressing the Truth, not in words only, but in deeds. There is a testimony, however, that is not given unto all to render, this is the Testimony of blood ; the martyrs hold this privilege, this is the special stand granted to them in the ceaseless battle ever being waged betwixt Truth and falsehood, and this battle is the sum total of all history. Hence martyrs come crowding on the brilliant heavens of holy Church at this season. In a few days, the Church will be all thrilling with gladness at the birth of Saint John the Baptist, that man great beyond all men, and whose greatness specially consists in that he was sent by God to be a witness, to

1 St. John, xv. 26. 2 Ibid, xviii 37. 8 St. Matth. xi. 1 1. give testimony of the Light We shall then meditate at leisure upon these thoughts for which we seem to be prepared, by the ever swelling groups of joyous martyrs, who cross our path as it were to announce the near approach of the Friend of the Bridegroom. To-day we have Vitus, accompanied by his faithful foster-parents, Modestus and CresceDtia. He is but a child, yet he comes teaching us the price of baptism and the fidelity we owe to our Father in heaven, despite all else beside. Great is his glory, both on earth and in heaven ; the demons who used to tremble before him in life, still continue their dread of him. His name remains ineffaceably inscribed on the memory of the Christian people, just as that of a Saint Elmo or Erasmus, among their most potent "helpers" in daily needs. Saint Vitus, or more commonly St. Guy, is invoked to deliver those who are attacked by that lamentable sickness which is named from him, as also to neutralise bad effects from the bite of a mad dog; and his beneficence is evinced even to the dumb brutes also. He is likewise implored in cases of lethargy or unduly prolonged sleep ; for this reason, the cock is his distinctive attribute in Christian, art, as well as because recourse is usually had to this saint when one wants to awake at some particular hour.

Let us now turn to what the Liturgy relates of our to-day's Saints :

Vitus Vitus admodum puer infa- scio patre baptizatus est : quod cum ille rescivisaet, nihil prsetermisit quo filium Christiana religione remo- Qua in voluntate per- whilst yet a child was baptized, unknown to his then When his father found this out, he used his best endeavouro to dissuade his son a fromtheChristian religion, but veret. i St. John, i. 6, 8. * Ibid. UL 29.

O manentem Valeriano judici verberibus castigandum tradidit. Sed nihilominus in sententia persistens, patri redditus est . Sed dum earn pater gravius punire cogitat, Vitus, angeli monitu, comitibus Modesto et Crescentia ejus educatoribus,migrat in alienas terras : ibique earn sanctitatis laudem adeptus est, ut ejus fama ad Diocletianum perlata, ipsum imperator accerseret ut filium suum a daemone vexatum liberaret: quo liberate cum ei amplissimis praemiis ingratus imperator ut deos coleret persuadere non potuisset, una cum Modesto et Crescentia, vinculis constrictum mittit in carcerem.

Quosubi constantiores esse comperit, demitti jubet in ingens vas liquato plumbo, f erventi resina ac pice plenum : in quo cum, tnum Hebrseorumpuerorum more, divinos hymnos canerent, inde erepti, leoni objiciuntur ; qui prosternens se, eorum pedes lambebat. Quare innammatus ira imperator, quod multitudinem videbat miraculo commoveri, eos in catasta sterni jubet et ita caedi eorum membra atque ossa divellL Quo tempore tonitrua, fulgura, magnique terraemotus t PENTECOST. as he found him persistent in it, he handed him over to Valerian, the Judge, to be whipped. But as he still remained as unshaken as before, he was given back to his father. But while his father was turning over in his mind to what severe discipline to subject him, Vitus, being warned by an angel, fled to another country, in company with Modestus and Crescentia, who had brought him up. There he gained great praise for holiness, so that his fame reached Diocletian. The emperor, therefore, sent for him to deliver his own child that was vexed by a devil. Vitus delivered him ; but when the emperor found that with all his gifts, he could not bring him to worship the gods, he had the ingratitude to cast him, as well as Modestus and Crescentia, into prison, binding them with fetters.

But when they were found, in the prison, more faithful than ever to their confession, the emperor commanded them to be tnrown into a great vessel full of burning resin and

Sitch and melted lead. There- 1 they, like the three Hebrew Children in the fiery furnace, sang praise to God ; and upon that they were dragged out and cast to a lion ; but he only lay down before them and licked their feet. Then the emperor, being filled with fury, more especially because he saw that the multitude that looked on were stirred up by the mir-

SS. VITUS, MODESTUS, acle, commanded Vitus, Modestus, and Crescentia to be stretched upon a block and their limbs crushed so that their bones were broken. "While they were dying, there came thunderings, and lightnings and earthquakes, so that the temples of the gods fell down, and many men were killed. Their remains were gathered up by a noble lady named Florentia who, embalming them with spices, honourably buried them. fuere,quibus templa deorum corruerunt et multi oppresai sunt. Eorum reliquiae Florentia, nobilis femina, unguentis conditas honorific© sepelivit

Too have won the battle, glorious Martyrs ! the struggle was not long, but it gained for you an eternal crown ! You have purchased unto yourselves, O Modestus and Crescentia, the everlasting gratitude of your God himself, for unto him ye faithfully gave back the precious charge committed to your keeping, in the person of that dear child who became your very own, through faith and baptism. And thou too, noble boy, who didst prefer thy Father in heaven to thine earthly parent, who may tell the caressing tenderness lavished upon thee eternally by Him whom before men thou didst so unflinchingly own to be thy true Father ? Even here below he is pleased to load thee with striking marks of his munificence ; for to thee he confides, on a large scale, the exercise of his merciful power. Because of that holy liberty which reigned in thy soul, from reason's earliest dawn, whereby thy body was subjected to thy soul's control, thou dost now hold over fallen nature a marvellous power. Unhappy sufferers whose distorted limbs are worked violently at the caprice of a cruel malady, and are no longer mastered by the will ; or, on the other hand, those who are rendered powerless and no longer free to act, by reason of resistless sleep, all these recover at thy feet that perfect harmony of soul and body, that needful docility of the material to the spiritual, whereby man may freely attend to the duties incumbent on him, whether as regards God or his neighbour. Vouchsafe to be ever more and more lavish in the granting of these favours, which are the precious gifts specially at thy disposal, for the good of suffering mankind, and for the greater glory of thy God who hath given, thee an eternal crown. We implore thee, in the words of the Church and by thy merits, that God may destroy in us that pride which spoils the equilibrium of man himself and makes him deviate from his path. May it be granted us to have a thorough contempt of evil, for thus is restored to man liberty in love: "Not to be proud-minded, but to make " progress in thy sight by pleasing humility ; that "despising what is evil, it may exercise with free ' charity the things which are right."1

1 Collect of the day.

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June 16. SAINTS CYR AND JULITTA,

MARTYRS. ♦

All the Churches of the East, in the different tongues of their several liturgies, celebrate the glory of Julitta and of Cyr : they all extol the holy duality of the son and the mother containing in itself the perfect worship of the Trmity. For the oblation of this mother and her son is of itself united to the sacrifice of the Son of God : such are in very deed the rights of the Holy Trinity, rights resulting in the case of every Christian from the first of our sacraments; absolute rights over both body and soul of even the smallest baby; such were the rights confessed by Saint Julitta and her little Cyr; yea, consecrated by their blood in one common oblation. The world was reminded yesterday in St Vitus, of a truth too easily forgotten by a generation, such as ours, more destitute of knowledge than of love : God's paternity is more complete than that of any earthly father, and likewise outstrips all other in the gravity of the duties it imposes on his sons. This teaching is still more strongly repeated to-day, and it is addressed in the first place to parents, more particularly.

Iconium, the native land of Thecla, the proto-martyr of the female sex, was likewise the home of

1 Stioheron Byzantii, ad diem xv. Jvliu

TIME AFTER PENTECOST.

Julitta. She, a fair flower budding forth from a royal stock of ancient kings, was to secure to her native town a renown far more lasting than did all the mighty deeds of her princely ancestors. The splendid feme inherited by this daughter of the ancient kings of Lycaonia, was nothing in her eyes compared to that which came to her through Christ. The title of Christian was the only one she made any account of, in presence of the judges on the day of her glorious triumph. Her gifts of fortune were considerable ; but never did earth's riches captivate her thoughts; and still less so from the moment God granted her a son. All treasures heaped together in one, could never be comparable to that which she now held in her arms, to that child confided by her Lord to the watchful care of her maternal love. Had not Baptism turned this frail little body into a temple of the Holy Ghost ? Was not this peerless soul an object of delight to the Eternal Father, who could see mirrored in its limpid innocence the true features of his well-beloved Son? Therefore, with what ineffable tenderness, with whal religious watchfulness, did not this mother surround her babe who still continued to draw life from her own breast; there developing, day by day, like a delicate plant under the genial ray of the Sun of J ustice ! Far was she from being one of those who, without sufficient reason, pass on to another the care of nurturing the fruit they themselves have borne. As if nature itself must not recoil from such substitution, too often as disastrous to the body, as to the soul of these tender little beings; as if, above all, it were not the incommunicable duty of a Christian mother and her most glorious privilege, to be ever on the watch about her child, so as to turn to God the first dawn of its wakening intelligence and the first movement of its free will. Julitta overflowed with glad-