October 5 — Saint Placid and His Companions Martyrs Saint Placid and His Companions

Thus Benedict of Nursia, fleeing into the desert, had rendered greater service than any mighty conqueror to Borne and her immortal destinies. The world soon discovered this faot ; and then began, as St. Gregory tells us, the concourse of Soman nobles, bringing their children to the patriarch of monks, to be educated by him for almighty God. 1

Placid was the eldest son of the patrician Tertullus. The excellent qualities early discovered in the child led his worthy father to offer to God, without delay, this dear first-fruit of his paternity. In those days, parents loved their children not for this passing world, but for eternity ; not for themselves, but for our Lord. The faith of Tertullus was well rewarded when, twenty years later, not only his first-born, but also his two other sons and their sister, were crowned with martydom. This was not the first holooaust of the kind in that heroic family, if it be true that they were relatives by blood, and heirs of the goods as well as of the virtues, of the holy martyr Eustace, who had been immolated four centuries earlier with his wife and sons. 2

Among the ohildren of promise enlisted by the vanquished nobles of the ancient empire in the new militia of the holy valley, Equitius brought to Subiaoo his son Maurus, a boy some years older than Placid. Henoeforth the names of Maurus and Placid beoame inseparable from that of Benedict ; and the patriarch acquired a new glory from his two sons, so united and yQt so different.

Equal in their love of their master and father, and themselves equally loved by him for their equal fidelity in good works, they experienced to the full that delight in virtue which makes its practice a second nature. However similar their zeal in using 1 Qregor. Dialog, lit. ii. cap 3. * See above, Sept. 20 T

TIME AFTER PENTB008T

' the most strong and bright armour of obedienoe/ in the service of Christ the King, it was wonderful to see the master accommodating himself to the age of his disoiples ; so adapting himself to their differences of character, that there was nothing preoipitate, nothing forced, in his education. It disciplined nature without orushing it, and followed the Holy Ghost without endeavouring to take the lead. In Maurus was especially reproduced Benedict's austere gravity ; in Placid his simplicity and sweetness, enedict took Maurus to witness the chastisement inflicted on the wandering monk, who could not stay at prayer ; but Placid aooompanied him to the mountain-top, where his prayer obtained a spring of water to deliver from danger and fatigue the brethren dwelling on the rocks above the Anio. But when, walking along the river-side, holding Placid by the hand and leaning upon Maurus, the legislator of monks explained to them the code of perfection they were afterwards to propagate, the angels knew not whioh most to admire: the candour of the one, winning the father's tenderest affection ; or the preoooious maturity of the other, meriting the holy patriaroh's confidence, and already sharing his burden.

Who does not reooUeot the admirable scene of Maurus walking on the water and saving Plaoid from drowning ? Monastio traditions never weary of extolling the obedience of Maurus, Benedict's humility, and the sagacious simplicity of the ohild pronojinoing sentence as judge of the prodigy. 1 Of suoh ohildren the master could say from experience: 'The Lord oftentimes revealeth that whioh is best, to him that is the younger.' 2 And we may well believe that the reoolleotions of the holy valley prompted him, later