Arian party, he was chosen, against his will, bishop of a destitute church at Ruspe, in Byzacium. He vindicated his faith with boldness and dignity before his Arian sovereign. He thus addressed the king in an apology for his faith: "If I freely vindicate my faith, as far as God has granted me ability, yet I venture to believe I shall incur no suspicion of contumaciousness, since I am not unmindful either of my own inferiority, or of the king's dignity, and since I well know that I am bound to fear God and honour the king according to Rom. xiii. 7; 1 Pet. ii. 17. Certainly, he evinces true love and honour for you who answers your questions as the true faith requires." After praising the king for showing such great zeal for the pure doctrine of Scripture, though placed over a people not yet civilized, he says: "You are well aware, that whoever strives to know the truth, strives after a far higher good than he who seeks to extend the boundaries of a temporal kingdom." A second time he was banished to Sardinia. Here he was the spiritual guide of many other exiles, who joined themselves to him; from this spot also he imparted counsel, consolation, and confirmation by his epistles to his Christian friends whom he had left in Africa, and to those in other parts who applied to him on spiritual things and the welfare of their souls.

We will give a few extracts from these epistles. He thus exhorts a Roman senator:-" Direct the striving of thy heart to the Holy Scriptures, and learn there what thou wert, what thou art, and what thou wilt be. If thou comest with humility and gentleness to the Holy Scriptures, thou wilt certainly find the grace which raises up the fallen, leads him into the way of goodness, and conducts him to the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven." Writing to a widow, to console her for the loss of her husband, he says: Pray earnestly with words, but always with holy thoughts und a holy walk. Thus you will fulfil the apostle's injunction to 'pray without ceasing (1 Thess. v. 17); for in God's sight every good work is a prayer with which the all-sufficient God is well pleased." To the same individual he writes: "Let .ove to the (heavenly) bridegroom ever live in thee, who himself lives for ever, as after the resurrection was testified by the word of the angel: Why seek ye the living among the lead?' The living one is He who is the word of the Father,

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and is himself the life of believers." In another epistle he says: "Christ came to pour forth the fire of divine love upon the earth, to burn up all the seeds of pride, and to communicate to humbled hearts the glow of holy contrition. Thus it comes to pass that we accuse ourselves for our sins with sincere hearts, and praise God with sincere humility for our good works; so that we thank him for what his love has given us, and confess ourselves guilty wherein our weakness has sinned against him. Contrition of heart awakens sensibility for prayer. Humbleness of mind craves divine aid. Contrition of heart feels its wounds; but prayer seeks healing to obtain soundness. And who is capable of that? Who can pray in a right manner unless the Physician himself infuse the beginning of spiritual desire? Or who can persist in prayer, unless God, who begins it in us, increases it, and carries on to perfection what he has implanted?" Against an ascetic pride he thus writes: "In vain thou despisest thy earthly goods, if thou carriest in thy heart punishable pride. For not only do those sin whose hearts are lifted up on account of their riches; those persons are still more criminal whose hearts are lifted up on account of their contempt of riches." In his third epistle he writes: "The souls of all who are justified and live in the faith are severely tried while here. Yes, only those souls know what severe pressure they suffer, into whom the true light pours itself which enlightens every man that comes into the world." He warns equally against despair and overconfidence. "Who prevents the hand of the Almighty Physician by his culpable despair, from effecting the salvation of man? Truly the Physician says: The whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick.' If our Physician is rightly qualified, he can cure all sickness. If our God is merciful, he can forgive all sins. That is not perfect goodness, by which all evil is not overcome. That is not a perfect art of healing for which there is one incurable disease. Therefore let no one remain in his sickness through despair of the physician. Let no one perish in the consumption of his sins, because he underrates God's mercy. The apostle says (Rom. v. 6), that Christ died for the ungodly,' and (1 Tim. i. 15), that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Sound conversion consists in two things; repentance is not forsaken by hope, nor hope forsaken by repentance, if

a man with his whole heart renounces his sins, and with his whole heart places his hope of forgiveness in God."

He was soon recalled from his second banishment under the mild government of King Hilderic. The return of the persecuted confessors was a festival for the Carthaginian people. Multitudes flocked to meet them at the port; but Fulgentius was received with the greatest love and veneration. When he returned from Carthage to his church, great crowds met him all the way with torches and garlands. Yet he who had remained steadfast in his faith amidst his sufferings, remained also steadfast in humility, in this return of prosperity, when he was threatened by refined (and so much the more dangerous) temptations to pride. The reverence which was paid him only made him feel more deeply his own unworthiness, his internal sinfulness, which the Christian still suffers in the life of grace here below. He did not desire to work miracles; for the performance of wonderful things, he said, does not give righteousness, but only fame among men. But he who is famed among men, unless he is also a righteous man, will not escape eternal punishment. But he who by God's mercy is justified, and lives as a righteous man in God's sight, however little he may be known to men, will have a part in the salvation of the saints." When he was required to pray for the sick or for any one in affliction, he prayed with this addition, Lord, thou knowest what is serviceable for the welfare of our souls. If, therefore, we ask thee for what the present necessity admonishes us to ask of thee, may thy mercy grant what will not hinder our spiritual advantage. May our humble prayer therefore be so heard by thee, that before all things thy will may be done." When those persons who had asked him for his intercession, returned him thanks for its being heard, he answered: It happened not on account of my merit, but of your faith. The Lord has granted it not to me, but to you." His biographer and pupil says of him, in his own spirit: "This admirable man would not have the reputation of a worker of miracles, although he performed daily great wonders, since by his holy exhortations he led many unbelievers to the faith, many teachers of error to a knowledge of the truth; many who had led abandoned lives were brought under the laws of temperance; drunkards learned sobriety, and adulterers chastity; the grasping and covetous imparted

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their all to the poor; humility became pleasant to the proud, peace to the quarrelsome, obedience to the disobedient. Such were the wonders that Fulgentius strove always to perform.'

CHAPTER II.

SEVERINUS IN GERMANY.

As the Lord sends his angels where their help is most needed, so amidst the ravages and desolation which followed that immigration of the nations by which the Roman empire was shattered in pieces, he sent assistance, after the death of the world-waster Attila, in the person of a distinguished man inflamed with holy love to the various tribes in the vicinity of the Danube. He was exactly the man they required. His name was Severinus. His whole appearance had something mysterious. As he was not accustomed to speak of himself, nothing determinate is known respecting his native country. Though many persons of all classes, who had gathered round him from the vicinity or a distance, wished to know his country, yet they did not venture to ask him; till at last a priest who had fled to him from Italy, summoned up courage to put the question to him. Severinus at first replied in his peculiar manner with good-natured playfulness: "What! do you take me for some runaway slave? then provide a ransom, which you can pay for me if I am inquired for." Then he added in a serious tone: "What pleasure can it be to a servant of God to specify his home or his descent, since by silence he can so much better avoid all boasting. I would that the left hand knew nothing of the good work which Christ grants the right hand to accomplish, in order that I may be a citizen of the heavenly country. Why need you know my earthly country, if you know that I am truly longing after the heavenly one? But know this, that the God who has granted you to be a priest, has commissioned me to live among this heavily-oppressed people." After that, no one ventured to propose such a question to him. But probably he was a native of the West, and had withdrawn into one of the deserts

of the East in order to devote himself to a quiet life of holy contemplation. Here he received the divine call to sacrifice his rest for the benefit of the suffering people in the West, as at a later period when he would gladly have retired again into solitude, a divine voice often admonished him not to deprive the oppressed people of his presence.

The regions in which he placed himself, known at this day as Austria and Bavaria, were just then the scene of the greatest desolation and confusion. No place was secure; one savage tribe followed another; all social order was broken up. The country was laid waste; the natives were carried away as captives. Universal destitution and famine followed the incessant wars. As Severinus had lived long among these people, and laboured much among them, his fame was widely spread, and the episcopal dignity was offered him; but he rejected it, declaring "that it was enough for him to be deprived of his beloved solitude, and to be brought by the divine providence into these parts where he was obliged to live among men who gave him no rest."

It must indeed have made a great impression on persons rendered effeminate by luxury, as well as on the savage tribes, when they saw Severinus voluntarily renouncing all the conveniences of life, and contenting himself with the most meagre fare; and in the midst of winter, when the Danube was frozen so hard that waggons could pass over it, going about barefooted in the ice and snow. Effeminate men might learn from him what was so necessary, in their altered condition, to make themselves independent of outward things, to rise above present sufferings by living in the spirit, to mollify and sweeten want and destitution by spiritual joy. Men belonging to the barbarous tribes who saw before them only weaklings whom they had crushed by the superiority of physical force, and who knew no other superiority, must have been struck with wonder and awe when they witnessed with their own eyes, how such a man with a body reduced by abstinence could accomplish the greatest things, simply by a spiritual power, the power of a soul animated by faith and love. What a contrast between him and worldly-minded ecclesiastics! as one of them once said to him, "Contrive, thou holy man, to leave our city, that during thy absence we may have some rest from fasting and watching!" !" Glowing