July XIX

St. Vincent of Paul, C.

founder of the lazarites, or fathers of the mission

From his edifying life written by Abelly, bishop of Rodez, and again by the celebrated continuator of Tournely’s Theological Lectures, Dr. Peter Collet, in two volumes, quarto, Nancy, 1748. See also Perrault, Ilommes Illustr. Helyot, Hist. des Ord. Relig. t. 8, p. 64, and the bull of his canonization published by Clement XII. in 1737, apud Bened. XIV. de canoniz., t. 4, Append. p. 363.

a. d. 1660.

Even in the most degenerate ages, when the true maxims of the gospel seem almost obliterated among the generality of those who profess it, God fails not, for the glory of his holy name, to raise to himself faithful ministers to revive the same in the hearts of many. Having, by the perfect crucifixion of the old man in their hearts, and the gift of prayer, prepared them to become vessels of his grace, he replenishes them with the spirit of his apostles that they may be qualified to conduct others in the paths of heroic virtue, in which the Holy Ghost was himself their interior Master. One of these instruments of the divine mercy was St. Vincent of Paul. He was a native of Pouï, a village near Acqs in Gascony, not far from the Pyrenæan mountains. His parents, William of Paul and Bertranda of Morass, occupied a very small farm of which they were the proprietors, and upon the produce of which they brought up a family of four sons and two daughters. The children were brought up in innocence, and inured from their infancy to the most laborious part of country labor. But Vincent, the third son, gave extraordinary proofs of his wit and capacity, and from his infancy showed a seriousness and an affection for holy prayer far beyond his age. He spent great part of his time in that exercise when he was employed in the fields to keep the cattle. That he might give to Christ in the persons of the poor all that was in his power, he deprived himself of his own little conveniences and necessaries for that purpose in whatever it was possible for him to retrench from his own use. This early fervent consecration of himself to God, and these little sacrifices which may be compared to the widow’s two mites in the gospel, were indications of the sincere ardor with which he began to seek God from the first opening of his reason to know and love him; and were doubtless a means to draw down upon him from the author of these graces other greater blessings. His father was determined by the strong inclinations of the child to learning and piety, and the quickness of his parts, to procure him a school education. He placed him first under the care of the Cordeliers or Franciscan friars at Acqs, paying for his board and lodging the small pension of sixty French livres, that is, not six pounds English, a year.

Vincent had been four years at the schools when Mr. Commet, a gentleman of that town, being much taken with his virtue and prudence, chose him sub-preceptor to his children, and enabled him to continue his studies without being any longer a burden to his parents. At twenty years of age, in 1596, he was qualified to go to the university of Toulouse, where he spent seven years in the study of divinity, and commenced bachelor in that faculty. In that city he was promoted to the holy orders of subdeacon and deacon in 1598, and of priesthood in 1600, having received the tonsure and minor orders a few days before he left Acqs. He seemed already endowed with all those virtues which make up the character of a worthy and zealous minister of the altar; yet he knew not the full extent of heroic entire self-denial, by which a man becomes dead and crucified to all inordinate self-will; upon which perfect self-denial are engrafted the total sacrifice of the heart to God, perfect humility, and that purity and ardor of divine charity which constitute the saint. Vincent was a good proficient in theology and other sciences of the schools, and had diligently applied himself to the study of the maxims of Christian virtue in the gospel, in the lives of the saints, and in the doctrine of the greatest masters of a spiritual life. But there remained a new science for him to learn, which was to cost him much more than bare study and labor. This consists in perfect experimental and feeling sentiments of humility, patience, meekness, and charity; which science is only to be learned by the good use of severe interior and exterior trials. This is the mystery of the cross, unknown to those whom the Holy Ghost has not led into this important secret of his conduct in preparing souls for the great works of his grace. The prosperity of the wicked will appear at the last day to have often been the most dreadful judgment, and a state in which they were goaded on in the pursuit of their evil courses; whilst, on the contrary, it will then be manifested to all men that the afflictions of the saints have been the greatest effects of divine mercy. Thus, by a chain of temporal disasters, did God lay in the soul of Vincent the solid foundation of that high virtue to which by his grace he afterward raised him.

The saint went to Marseilles in 1605, to receive a legacy of five hundred crowns which had been left him by a friend who died in that city. Intending to return to Toulouse, he set out in a felucca or large boat from Marseilles to Narbonne, but was met in the way by three brigantines of African pirates. The infidels seeing the Christians refuse to strike their flag, charged them with great fury, and on the first onset killed three of their men, and wounded every one of the rest; Vincent received a shot of an arrow. The Christians were soon obliged to surrender. The first thing the Mahometans did was to cut the captain in pieces because he had not struck at the first summons, and in the combat had killed one of their men and four or five slaves. The rest they put in chains; and continued seven or eight days longer on that coast, committing several other piracies, but sparing the lives of those that made no resistance. When they had got a sufficient booty they sailed for Barbary. Upon landing they drew up an act of their seizure, in which they falsely declared that Vincent and his companions had been taken on board of a Spanish vessel, that the French consul might not challenge them. Then they gave to every slave a pair of loose breeches, a linen jerkin, and a bonnet. In this garb they were led five or six times through the city of Tunis to be shown; after which they were brought back to their vessel, where the merchants came to see them, as men do at the sale of a horse or an ox. They examined who could eat well, felt their sides, looked at their teeth to see who were of scorbutic habits of body, consequently unlikely for very long life; they probed their wounds, and made them walk and run in all paces, lift up burdens, and wrestle, to judge of their strength. Vincent was bought by a fisherman, who, finding that he could not bear the sea, soon sold him again to an old physician, a great chemist and extractor of essences, who had spent fifty years in search of the pretended philosopher’s stone. He was humane, and loved Vincent exceedingly; but gave him long lectures on his alcnemy, and on the Mahometan law, to which he used his utmost efforts to bring him over; promising, on that condition, to leave him all his riches, and to communicate to him, what he valued much more than his estate, all the secrets of his pretended science. Vincent feared the danger of his soul much more than all the hardships of his slavery, and most earnestly implored the divine assistance against it, recommending himself particularly to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, to which he ever after attributed his victory over this temptation. He lived with this old man from September 1605 to August 1606, when, by this physician’s death, he fell to the share of a nephew of his master, a true man-hater. By resignation to the divine will, and confidence in providence, he enjoyed a sweet repose in his own heart under all accidents, hardships, and dangers; and by assiduous devout meditation on the sufferings of Christ, learned to bear all his afflictions with comfort and joy, uniting himself in spirit with his Divine Redeemer, and studying to copy in himself his lessons of perfect meekness, patience, silence, and charity. This new master sold him in a short time to a renegado Christian who came from Nice in Savoy. This man sent him to his temat or farm situate on a hot desert mountain. This apostate had three wives, of which one, who was a Turkish woman, went often to the field where Vincent was digging, and out of curiosity would ask him to sing the praises of God. He used to sing to her, with tears in his eyes, the psalm Upon the rivers of Babylon, &c. the Salve Regina, and such like prayers. She was so much taken with our holy faith, and doubtless with the saintly deportment of the holy slave, that she never ceased repeating to her husband, that he had basely abandoned the only true religion, till like another Caiphas or ass of Balaam, without opening her own eyes to the faith, she made him enter into himself. Sincerely repenting of his apostasy, he agrees with Vincent to make their escape together. They crossed the Mediterranean sea in a small light boat which the least squall of wind would overset; and they landed safe at Aigues-Mortes, near Marseilles, on the 28th of June, 1607, and thence proceeded to Avignon. The apostate made his abjuration in the hands of the vice-legate, and the year following went with Vincent to Rome, and there entered himself a penitent in the austere convent of the Fate-Ben-Fratelli, who served the hospitals according to the rule of St. John of God.

Vincent received great comfort at the sight of a place most venerable for its pre-eminence in the church, which has been watered with the blood of so many martyrs, and is honored with the tombs of the two great apostles SS Peter and Paul and many other saints. He was moved to tears at the remembrance of their zeal, fortitude, humility, and charity, and often devoutly visited their monuments, praying earnestly that he might be so happy as to walk in their steps, and imitate their virtues. After a short stay at Rome, to satisfy his devotion, he returned to Paris, and took up his quarters in the suburb of St. Germain’s. There lodged in the same house a gentleman, the judge of a village near Bourdeaux, who happened to be robbed of four hundred crowns. He charged Vincent with the theft, thinking it could be nobody else; and in this persuasion he spoke against him with the greatest virulence among all his friends, and wherever he went. Vincent calmly denied the fact, saying, “God knows the truth.” He bore this slander six years, without making any other defence, or using harsh words or complaints, till the true thief being taken up at Bourdeaux on another account, to appease his own conscience and clear the innocent he sent for this judge, and confessed to him the crime. St. Vincent related this in a spiritual conference with his priests, but as of a third person: to show that patience, humble silence, and resignation are generally the best defence of our innocence, and always the happiest means of sanctifying our souls under slanders and persecution; and we may be assured that providence will in its proper time justify us, if expedient.

At Paris Vincent became acquainted with the holy priest Monsieur de Berulle, who was afterward cardinal, and at that time was taken up in founding the Congregation of the French Oratory. A saint readily discovers a soul in which the spirit of God reigns. Berulle conceived a great esteem for St. Vincent from his first conversation with him; and to engage him in the service of his neighbor, he prevailed with him first to serve as curate of the parish of Clichi, a small village near Paris; and soon after to quit that employ to take upon him the charge of preceptor to the children of Emmanuel de Gondy, count of Joigny, general of the galleys of France. His lady, Frances of Silly, a person of singular piety, was so taken with the sanctity of Vincent, that she chose him for her spiritual director and confessor. In the year 1616, whilst the countess of Joigny was at a country seat at Folleville, in the diocess of Amiens, Vincent was sent for to the village of Gannes, two leagues from Folleville, to hear the confession of a countryman who lay dangerously ill. The zealous priest, by carefully examining his penitent, found it necessary to advise him to make a general confession, with which the other joyfully complied. The penitent by this means discovered that all his former confessions had been sacrilegious for want of a due examination of his conscience; and afterward, bathed in tears, he declared aloud, in transports of joy before many persons and the countess of Joigny herself, that he should have been eternally lost if he had not spoken to Vincent. The pious lady was struck with dread and horror to hear of such past sacrileges, and to consider the imminent danger of being damned in which that poor soul had been; and she trembled lest some others among her vassals might have the misfortune to be in the like case. Far from the criminal illusion of pride by which some masters and mistresses seem persuaded that they owe no care, attention, or provision to those whose whole life is employed only to give them the fruit of their sweat and labors; she was sensible from the principles both of nature and religion, that masters or lords lie under strict ties of justice and charity towards all committed to their care; and that they are bound in the first place, as far as it lies in their power, to see them provided with the necessary spiritual helps for their salvation. But to wave the obligation, what Christian heart can pretend to the bowels of charity, and be insensible at the dangers of such persons? The virtuous countess felt in her own breast the strongest alarms for so many poor souls, which she called her own by many titles. She therefore entreated Vincent to preach in the church of Folleville, on the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, in 1617, and fully to instruct the people in the great duty of repentance and confession of sins. He did so; and such crowds flocked to him to make general confessions that he was obliged to call in the Jesuits of Amiens to his assistance. The Congregation of the mission dates its first institution from this time, and in thanksgiving for it, keeps the 25th of January with great solemnity.

By the advice of Monsieur de Berulle, St. Vincent left the house of the countess in 1617, to employ his talents among the common people in the villages of Bresse, where he heard they stood in great need of instruction. He prevailed upon five other zealous priests to bear him company, and with them formed a little community in the parish of Chatillon in that province. He there converted by his sermons the count of Rougemont and many others from their scandalous unchristian lives to a state of eminent penance and fervor, and in a short time changed the whole face of the country.¹ The good countess his patroness was infinitely pleased with his success, and gave him sixteen thousand livres to found a perpetual mission among the common people in the place and manner he should think fit. But she could not be easy herself whilst she was deprived of his direction and advice; she therefore employed Monsieur de Berulle, and her brother-in-law cardinal de Retz to prevail with him to come to her, and extorted from him a promise that he would never abandon the direction of her conscience so long as she lived, and that he would assist her at her death. But being extremely desirous that others, especially those who were particularly entitled to her care and attention, should want nothing that could contribute to their sanctification and salvation, she induced her husband to concur with her in establishing a company of able and zealous missionaries who should be employed in assisting their vassals and farmers. This project they proposed to their brother, John Francis of Gondi, the first archbishop of Paris, and he gave the college of Bons Enfans for the reception of the new community. All things being agreed on St. Vincent took possession of this house in April 1625. The count and countess gave forty thousand French livres to begin the foundation.

St. Vincent attended the countess till her pious death, which happened on the 23d of June the same year; after which he joined his Congregation. He drew up for it certain rules or constitutions which were approved by pope Urban VIII., in 1632. King Louis XIII. confirmed the establishment by letters patent, which he granted in May the same year; and, in 1633, the regular canons of St. Victor gave to this new institute the priory of St. Lazarus, which being a spacious building was made the chief house of the Congregation, and from it the Fathers of the Mission were often called Lazarites or Lazarians. They are not religious men, but a Congregation of secular priests, who after two years’ probation make four simple vows, of poverty, chastity, obedience, and stability. They devote themselves to labor, in the first place, in sanctifying their own souls by the particular holy exercises prescribed in their institute; secondly, in the conversion of sinners to God; and thirdly, in training up clergymen for the ministry of the altar and the care of souls. To attain the first end, their rule prescribes them an hour’s meditation every morning, self-examination thrice every day, spiritual conferences every week, a yearly retreat of eight days, and silence except in the hours allowed for conversation. To comply with the second obligation, they are employed eight months every year in missions among the country people, staying three or four weeks in each place which they visit, every day giving catechism, making familiar sermons, hearing confessions, reconciling differences, and performing all other works of charity. To correspond with the third end which St. Vincent proposed to himself, some of this Congregation undertake the direction of seminaries, and admit ecclesiastics or others to make retreats of eight or ten days with them, to whom they prescribe suitable exercises; and for these purposes excellent rules are laid down by the founder. Pope Alexander VII., in 1662, enjoined by a brief, that all persons who receive holy orders in Rome, or in the six suffragan bishoprics, shall first make a retreat of ten days under the direction of the fathers of this Congregation, under pain of suspension. St. Vincent settled his institute also in the seminary of St. Charles in Paris, and lived to see twenty-five houses of it founded in France, Piedmont, Poland, and other places.

This foundation, though so extensive and beneficial, could not satisfy the zeal of this apostolic man. He by every other means studied to procure the relief of others under all necessities, whether spiritual or corporal. For this purpose he established many other confraternities, as that called Of Charity, to attend all poor sick persons in each parish; which institution he began in Bresse, and propagated in other places where he made any missions; one called Of the Dames of the Cross, for the education of young girls; another of Dames to serve the sick in great hospitals, as in that of Hotel Dieu in Paris. He procured and directed the foundation of several great hospitals as in Paris that of foundlings, or those children who, for want of such a provision, are exposed to the utmost distress, or to the barbarity of unnatural parents; also that of poor old men; at Marseilles the stately hospital for the galley-slaves, who, when sick, are there abundantly furnished with every help both corporal and spiritual. All these establishments he settled under excellent regulations, and supplied with large sums of money to defray all necessary expenses. He instituted a particular plan of spiritual exercises for those that are about to receive holy orders; and others for those who desire to make general confessions, or to deliberate upon the choice of a state of life. He also appointed regular ecclesiastical conferences on the duties of the clerical state, &c. It must appear almost incredible that so many and so great things could have been effected by one man, and a man who had no advantage from birth, fortune, or any shining qualities which the world admires and esteems. But our surprise would be much greater if we could enter into a detail of his wonderful actions, and the infinite advantages which he procured others. During the wars in Lorrain, being informed of the miseries to which those provinces were reduced, he collected charities among pious persons at Paris, which were sent thither, to the amount of fifteen or sixteen thousand livres, says Abelly; nay, as Collet proves from authentic vouchers, of two millions, that is, according to the value of money at that time, considerably above one hundred thousand pounds sterling; and he did the like on other occasions. He assisted King Louis XIII. at his death, and by his holy advice and exhortations that monarch expired in perfect sentiments of piety and resignation. Our saint was in the highest favor with the queen regent, Anne of Austria, who nominated him a member of the young king’s Council of Conscience, and consulted him in all ecclesiastical affairs, and in the collation of benefices; which office he discharged ten years.

Amidst so many and so great employs his soul seemed always united to God; in the most distracting affairs it kept, as it were, an eye always open to him, in order to converse continually with him. This constant attention to him he often renewed, and always when the clock struck, by making the sign of the cross (at least secretly with his thumb upon his breast) with an act of divine love. Under all crosses, disappointments, and slanders, he always preserved a perfect serenity and evenness of mind, which it did not seem in the power of the whole world to disturb; for he considered all events only with a view to the divine will, and with an entire resignation to it, having no other desire but that God should be glorified in all things. Whether this was to be done by his own disgrace and sufferings, or by whatever other means it pleased the divine majesty, he equally rejoiced. Not that he fell into the pretended apathy or insensibility of the proud Stoics, or into the impious indifference of the false Mystics, afterwards called Quietists, than which nothing is more contrary to true piety, which is always tender, affectionate, and most sensible to all the interests of charity and religion. This was the character of our saint, who regarded the afflictions of all others as his own, sighed continually with St. Paul after that state of glory in which he should be united inseparably to his God, and poured forth his soul before him with ‘ears over his own and others’ spiritual miseries. Having his hope fixed as a firm anchor in God, by an humble reliance on the divine mercy and goodness, he seemed raised above the reach of the malice of creatures, or the frowns of the world; and he enjoyed a tranquillity within his breast which no storms were able to ruffle or disturb. So perfect was the mastery which he had gained over his passions, that his meekness and patience seemed unalterable, whatever provocations he met with. He was never moved by affronts, unless to rejoice secretly under them, because he was sure to find in them a hidden treasure of grace, and an opportunity of vanquishing himself. This is the fruit of the victory which perfect virtue gains over self-love; and it is a more perfect sacrifice to God, a surer test of sincere virtue, a more herore victory, and a more glorious triumph of the soul to bear a slander, an injurious suspicion, or an unjust insult, in silence and patience, than the most shining exterior act of virtue; a language often repeated, but little understood or practised among Christians. Perfect self-denial, the most profound humility, and an eminent spirit of prayer were the means by which St. Vincent attained to this degree of perfection; and he most earnestly recommended the same to his disciples. Humility he would have them to make the basis of his Congregation, and it was the lesson which he never ceased to repeat to them, that they ought to study sincerely to conceal even their natural talents. When two persons of extraordinary learning and abilities once presented themselves, desiring to be admitted into his Congregation, he gave them both a repulse, telling them, “Your abilities raise you above our low state. Your talents may be of good service in some other place. As for us, our highest ambition is to instruct the ignorant, to bring sinners to a spirit of penance, and to plant the gospel-spirit of charity, humility, meekness, and simplicity in the hearts of all Christians.” He laid it down also as a rule of humility, that, if possible, a man ought never to speak of himself or his own concerns, such discourse usually proceeding from, and nourishing in the heart, pride and self-love. This indeed is a rule prescribed by Confucius, Aristotle, Cato, Pliny, and other philosophers; because, say they, for any one to boast of himself is always the most intolerable and barefaced pride, and modesty in such discourse will be suspected of secret vanity. Egotism, or the itch of speaking always of a man’s self, shows he is intoxicated with the poison of self-love, refers everything to himself, and is his own centre, than which scarce anything can be more odious and offensive to others. But Christian humility carries this maxim higher, teaching us to love a hidden life, and to lie concealed and buried, as being in ourselves nothingness and sin.

St. Vincent exerted his zeal against the novelties concerning the article of divine grace which sprang up in his time. Michael Baius, doctor and professor of divinity at Louvain, advanced a new doctrine concerning the grace conferred on man in the two states before and after Adam’s fall, and some other speculative points; and pope Pius V. in 1567, condemned seventy-six propositions under his name. Some of these, Baius confessed he had taught, and these he solemnly revoked and sincerely condemned with all the rest in 1580, in presence of F. Francis Toletus, afterward cardinal, whom Gregory XIII. had sent for that very purpose to Louvain. Cornelius Jansenius and John Verger, commonly called Abbé de St. Cyran, contracted a close friendship together during their studies first at Louvain, afterward at Paris, and concerted a plan of a new system of doctrine concerning divine grace, founded, in part, upon some of the condemned errors of Baius. This system Jansenius, by his friend’s advice, endeavored to establish in a book, which from St. Austin, the great doctor of grace, he entitled, Augustinus After having been bishop of Ipres from 1635 to 1638, he died of the pestilence, having never published his book, in the close of which he inserted a declaration that he submitted his work to the judgment of the Church.* Fromond, another Louvanian divine, and abler scholar, and a more polite writer, polished the style of this book, and put it in the press.¹ Verger became director of the nuns of Port-Royal, had read some ancient writers on books of devotion, and wrote with ease.² But his very works on subjects of piety, however neatly written, betray the author’s excessive presumption and forbidding self-sufficiency. He became the most strenuous advocate for Jansenism, and was detained ten years prisoner in the castle of Vincennes. He died soon after he had recovered his liberty, in 1643. This man had by his reputation gained the esteem of St. Vincent; but the saint hearing him one day advance his errors, and add that the Church had failed for five or six hundred years past, he was struck with horror, and from that moment renounced the friendship of so dangerous a person. When these errors were afterward more publicly spread abroad, he strenuously exerted himself against them; on which account Gerberon, the Jansenistical historian, makes him the butt of his rancor and spleen. But general and vague invectives of the enemies to truth are the commendation of his piety and zeal.³ Our saint’s efforts to destroy that heresy, says Abelly, never made him approve a loose morality, which on all occasions he no less avoided and abhorred than the errors of the Jansenists. He was particularly careful in insisting on all the conditions of true repentance to render it sincere and perfect; for want of which he used to say with St. Ambrose, that some pretended penitents are rendered more criminal by their sacrilegious hypocrisy in the abuse of so great a sacrament, than they were by all their former sins.

In the year 1658 St. Vincent assembled the members of his Congregation at St. Lazarus, and gave to every one a small book of rules which he had compiled. At the same time he made a pathetic exhortation, to enforce the most exact and religious observance of them. This Congregation was again approved and confirmed by Alexander VII., and Clement X. St. Vincent was chosen by St. Francis of Sales director of his nuns of the Visitation that were established at Paris. The robust constitution of the zealous servant of God was impaired by his uninterrupted fatigues and austerities. In the eightieth year of his age he was seized with a periodical fever, with violent night sweats. After passing the night almost without sleep, and in an agony of pain, he never failed to rise at four in the morning, to spend three hours in prayer, to say mass every day (except on the three first days of his annual retreat, according to the custom he had established), and to exert, as usual, his indefatigable zeal in the exercises of charity and religion. He even redoubled his diligence in giving his last instructions to his spiritual children; and recited every day after mass the prayers of the Church for persons in their agony, with the recommendation of the soul, and other preparatory acts for his last hour. Alexander VII. in consideration of the extreme weakness to which his health was reduced, sent him a brief to dispense him from reciting his breviary; but before it arrived the servant of God had finished the course of his labors, Having received the last sacraments and given his last advice, he calmly expired in his chair, on the 27th of September 1660, being fourscore and five years old. He was buried in the church of St. Lazarus in Paris, with an extraordinary concourse and pomp. An account of several predictions of this servant of God, and some miraculous cures performed by him whilst alive, may be read in his life written by Collet,⁴ with a great number of miracles wrought through his intercession after his death at Paris, Angiers, Sens, in Italy, &c. Mr. Bonnet, superior of the seminary at Chartres, afterward general of the Congregation, by imploring this saint’s intercession, was healed instantaneously of an inveterate entire rupture, called by the physicians entero-epiplo-celle,* which had been declared by the ablest surgeons absolutely incurable; this miracle was approved by cardinal Noailles. Several like cures of fevers, hemorrhages, palsies, dysenteries, and other distempers were juridically proved. A girl eight years old, both dumb and lame, was cured by a second Novena or nine days’ devotion performed for her by her mother in honor of St. Vincent. His body was visited by cardinal Noailles in presence of many witnesses, in 1712, and found entire and fresh, and the linen cloths in the same condition as if they were new. The tomb was then shut up again. This ceremony is usually performed before the beatification of a servant of God, though the incorruption of the body by itself is not regarded as a miraculous proof at Rome or elsewhere, as Collet remarks.⁵ After the ordinary rigorous examinations of the conduct, heroic virtues, and miracles of this saint at Rome, pope Benedict XIII. performed with great solemnity the ceremony of his beatification, in 729. Upon the publication of the brief thereof, the archbishop of Paris caused the grave to be again opened. The lady marechale of Noailles, the marshal her son, and many other persons were present; but the flesh on the legs and head appeared corrupted, which alteration from the state in which it was found twenty-seven years before, was attributed to a flood of water which twelve years before this had overflowed that vault. Miracles continued frequently to be wrought by the relics and invocation of St. Vincent. A Benedictin nun at Montmirel, afflicted with a violent fever, retention of urine, ulcers, and other disorders, her body being swelled to an enormous size, and having been a long time paralytic, was perfectly cured all at once by a relic of St. Vincent applied to her by Monseigneur Joseph Languet. then bishop of Soissons. Francis Richer, in Paris, was healed in a no less miraculous manner. Miss Louisa Elizabeth Sackville, an English young lady at Paris, was cured of a palsy by performing a novena at the tomb of St. Vincent; which miracle was attested in the strongest manner, among others, by Mrs. Hayes, a protestant gentlewoman with whom she lodged. Miss Sackville became afterward a nun in the French abbey called of the Holy Sacrament, in Paris, lived ten years without any return of her former disorder, and died in 1742. St. Vincent was canonized in 1737 by pope Clement XII.

This saint could not display his zeal more to the advantage of his neighbor than by awaking Christians from the spiritual lethargy in which so many live. He set before their eyes the grievous disorder of lukewarmness in the divine service, and explained to them, like another Baptist, the necessity and obligations of sincere repentance; for those certainly can never be entitled to the divine favor who live in an ambiguous, divided, and distracted state of sinning and repenting; of being heathens and Christians by turns. Still more dreadful is the state of those who live in habitual sin, yet are insensible of their danger, and frightful miseries! Into what extravagance, folly, spiritual blindness, and sometimes incredulity, do men’s passions often plunge them! To what a degree of madness and stupidity do men of the finest natural parts sink, when abandoned by God! or rather when they themselves abandon God, and that light which he has set up in the world! Let us by tears and prayers implore the divine mercy in favor of all blind sinners.

St. Arsenius, Anchoret

He was a Roman by birth, and was related to senators. He had been trained up in learning and piety, was sincerely virtuous, and well skilled, not only in the holy scriptures, but also in the profane sciences, and in the Latin and Greek languages and literature. He was in deacon’s orders, and led a retired life at home with his sister, in Rome, when the emperor Theodosius the Great wanted a person to whom he might intrust the care of his children, and desired the emperor Gratian to apply for that purpose to the bishop of Rome, who recommended Arsenius. Gratian sent him to Constantinople, where he was kindly received by Theodosius, who advanced him to the rank of a senator, with orders that he should be respected as the father of his children, whose tutor and preceptor he appointed him. No one in the court at that time wore richer apparel, had more sumptuous furniture, or was attended by a more numerous train of servants than Arsenius; he was attended by no fewer than a thousand, all richly clad. Theodosius coming one day to see his children at their studies, found them sitting, whilst Arsenius talked to them standing. Being displeased thereat, he took from them for some time the marks of their dignity, and caused Arsenius to sit, and them to listen to him standing.

Arsenius had always a great inclination to a retired life, which the care of his employment and the incumbrances of a great fortune made him desire the more ardently; for titles and honors were burthensome to him. At length, about the year 390, an opportunity offered itself. Arcadius having committed a considerable fault, Arsenius whipped him for it. The young prince, resenting the chastisement, grew the more obstinate. Arsenius laid hold of this occasion to execute the project he had long before formed of forsaking the world. The Lives of the Fathers, both in Rosweide and Cotelier, make no mention of this resentment of Arcadius, which circumstance is only related by Metaphrastes; on which account it is omitted by Tillemont and others. It is most certain that retirement had long been the object of the saint’s most earnest wishes and desires; but before he left the court, he for a long time begged by earnest prayer to know the will of God; and one day making this request with great fervor, he heard a voice, saying, “Arsenius, flee the company of men, and thou shalt be saved.” He obeyed the call of heaven without delay, and going on board a vessel, sailed to Alexandria, and thence proceeded to the desert of Sceté, where he embraced an anachoretical life. This happened about the year 394, he being in the fortieth year of his age, and having lived eleven years at the court. There he renewed his prayers to God, begging to be instructed in the way of salvation, having no other desire than to make it his only study to please God in all things. Whilst he prayed thus, he again heard a voice which said, “Arsenius, flee, hold thy peace, and be quiet; these are the principles of salvation,”¹ that is, the main things to be observed in order to be saved. Pursuant to the repeated advice or injunction of fleeing and avoiding human conversation, he made choice of a very remote cell, and admitted very few visits even from his own brethren. When he went to the church, upwards of thirty miles distance from his habitation, he would place himself behind one of the pillars, the better to prevent his seeing or being seen by any one. Theodosius, in great affliction for the loss of him, caused search to be made for him both by sea and land; but being soon after called into the West to revenge the death of Valentinian II., and to extinguish the rebellion of Arbogastus his murderer, and Eugenius, died of a dropsy at Milan in 395. Arcadius being left emperor of the East, advanced Rufin, who was the prefectus-prætorio, and had been his flattering governor, to the rank of prime minister, committing to him the direction not only of his armies, but also of the whole empire. He at the same time earnestly desired to call back to court his holy master Arsenius, that he might be assisted by his wise and faithful counsels. Being informed that he was in the desert of Sceté, he wrote to him, recommending himself to his prayers, begging his forgiveness, and offering him the disposal of all the tribute of Egypt, that he might make a provision for the monasteries and the poor at his discretion; but the saint had no other ambition on earth than to be allowed the liberty of enjoying his solitude, that he might employ his time in bewailing his sins, and in preparing his soul for eternity. He therefore answered the emperor’s message only by word of mouth, saying, “God grant us all the pardon of our sins; as to the distribution of the money, I am not capable of such a charge, being already dead to the world.” When he first presented himself to the ancients or superiors of the monks of Sceté, and begged to be allowed to serve God under their direction, they recommended him to the care of St. John the Dwarf, who, when the rest in the evening sat down to take their repast, took his place among them, and left Arsenius standing in the middle without taking notice of him. Such a reception was a severe trial to a courtier; but was followed by another much rougher; for, in the middle of the repast, St. John took a loaf or portion of bread, and threw it on the ground before him, bidding him, with an air of indifference, eat if he would. Arsenius cheerfully fell on the ground, and in that posture took his meal. St. John was so satisfied with his behavior in this single instance, that he required no further trial for his admission, and said to his brethren: “Return to your cells with the blessing of the Lord. Pray for us. This, person is fit for a religious life.”

Arsenius, after his retreat, only distinguished himself among the anchorets by his greater humility and fervor. At first he used, without perceiving it, to do certain things which he had practised in the world, which seemed to savor of levity or immortification, as, for instance, to sit cross-legged, or laying one knee over another. The seniors were unwilling, through the great respect they bore him, to tell him of this in a public assembly in which they were met to hold a spiritual conference together; but abbot Pemen or Pastor made use of this stratagem: He agreed with another that he should put himself in that posture; and then he rebuked him for his immodesty; nor did the other offer any excuse. Arsenius perceived that the reproof was meant for him, and corrected himself of that custom. In other respects he appeared from the beginning an accomplished master in every exercise of virtue in that venerable company of saints. To punish himself for his seeming vanity at court, because he had there gone more richly habited than others, his garments were always the meanest of all the monks in Sceté. He employed himself on working-days till noon in making mats of palm-tree leaves; and he always worked with a handkerchief in his bosom, to wipe off the tears which continually fell from his eyes. He never changed the water in which he moistened his palm-tree leaves, but only poured in fresh water upon it as it wasted. When some asked him one day why he did not cast away the corrupted water, he answered, “I ought to be punished by this ill smell for the sensuality with which I formerly used perfumes when I lived in the world.” To satisfy for former superfluities he lived in the most universal poverty, so that in a violent fit of illness having occasion for a small sum to procure him some little necessaries, he was obliged to receive it in alms, whereupon he gave God thanks for being made worthy to be thus reduced to the necessity of asking alms in his name. The distemper continued so long upon him that the priest of this desert of Sceté caused him to be carried to his apartment contiguous to the church, and laid him on a little bed made of the skins of beasts, with a pillow under his head. One of the monks coming to see him, was much scandalized at his lying so easy, and said, “Is this the abbot Arsenius?” The priest took him aside, and asked him what his employment had been in the village before he was a monk? The old man answered, “I was a shepherd, and lived with much pains and difficulty.” Then the priest said, “Do you see this abbot Arsenius? when he was in the world he was the father of the emperors: he had a thousand slaves clothed in silk, with bracelets and girdles of gold, and he slept on the softest and richest beds. You who was a shepherd, did not find in the world the ease which you now enjoy.” The old man, moved by these words, fell down, and said, “Pardon me, father, I have sinned; he is in the true way of humiliation;” and he went away exceedingly edified. Arsenius in his sickness wanting a linen garment, accepted something given him in charity, to buy one, saying, “I return thanks to thee, O Lord, for thy grace and mercy, in permitting me to receive alms in thy name.” One of the emperor’s officers, at another time, brought him the will of a senator, his relation, who was lately dead and had left him his heir. The saint took the will, and would have torn it to pieces, but the officer threw himself at his feet, and begged him not to tear it, saying, such an accident would expose him to be tried for his life. St. Arsenius, however, refused the estate, saying, “I died before him, and cannot be made his heir.”

Though no one knew the saint’s fasts, they must have been excessive, as the measure of corn, called thallin,* sent him for the year, was exceeding small; this, however, he managed so well as not only to make it suffice for himself, but also to impart some of it to his disciples when they came to visit him. When new fruit was brought him he just tasted it, and gave thanks to God; but he took so little as to show he did it only to avoid the vanity of singularity. Great abstinence makes little sleep to suffice nature. Accordingly St. Arsenius often passed the whole night in watching and prayer, as we learn from his disciple Daniel. At other times, having watched a considerable part of the night, when nature could hold out no longer, he would allow himself a short repose, which he took sitting after which he resumed his wonted exercises. On Saturday evenings, as the same disciple relates, it was his custom to go to prayers at sun-set, and continue in that exercise with his hands lifted up to heaven till the sun beat on his face the next morning. His affection for the holy exercise of prayer, and his dread of the danger of vain-glory, gave him the strongest love of retirement. He had two disciples who lived near him, and did all his necessary business abroad. Their names were Alexander and Zoilus; he afterward admitted a third, called Daniel. All three were famous for their sanctity and discretion, and frequent mention is made of them in the histories of the fathers of the deserts of Egypt. St. Arsenius would seldom see strangers who came to visit him, saying, he would only use his eyes to behold the heavens.

Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, came one day in company with a certain great officer and others to visit him, and begged he would entertain them on some spiritual subject for the good of their souls. The saint asked them whether they were disposed to comply with his directions; and being answered in the affirmative, he replied; “I entreat you, then, that wherever you are informed of Arsenius’s abode, you would leave him to himself, and spare yourselves the trouble of coming after him.” On another occasion, when the same patriarch sent to know if he would open his door to him if he came, St. Arsenius returned for answer, that if he came alone he would; but that if he brought others with him he would seek out some other place, and would stay there no longer. Melania, a noble Roman lady, travelled as far as Egypt only to see Arsenius, and by means of Theophilus, contrived to meet him as he was coming out of his cell. She threw herself at his feet. The saint said to her, “A woman ought not to leave her house. You have crossed these great seas that you may be able to say at Rome that you have seen Arsenius, and raise in others a curiosity to come and see me.” Not daring to lift up her eyes, as she lay on the ground, she begged he would always remember her and pray for her. He answered, “I pray that the remembrance of you be blotted out of my mind.” Melania returned to Alexandria in great grief at this answer: but Theophilus comforted her, saying, “He only prayed that he might forget your person on account of your sex; but as for your soul, doubt not but he will pray for you.”

The saint never visited his brethren, contenting himself with meeting them at spiritual conferences. The abbot Mark asked him one day in the name of the hermits, why he so much shunned their conversation? The saint answered: “God knoweth how dearly I love you all; but I find I cannot be both with God and with men at the same time; nor can I think of leaving God to converse with men.” This disposition, however, did not hinder him from giving short lessons of virtue to his brethren, and several of his apophthegms are recorded among those of the ancient fathers. He said often, “I have always something to repent of after having conversed with men; but have never been sorry for having been silent.” He had frequently in his mouth those words which St. Euthymius and St. Bernard used also to repeat to themselves, to renew their fervor in the discharge of the obligations of their profession: “Arsenius, why hast thou forsaken the world, and wherefore art thou come hither?” Being asked one day why he, being so well versed in the sciences, sought the instruction and advice of a certain monk who was an utter stranger to all human literature? he replied, “I am not unacquainted with the learning of the Greeks and Romans; but I have not yet learned the alphabet of the science of the saints, whereof this seemingly ignorant person is master.”

Though the saint was excellently versed in sacred learning, and in the maxims and practice of perfect Christian virtue, he never would discourse on any point of scripture, and chose rather to hear than to instruct or speak, making it the first part of his study to divest his mind of all secret opinion of himself, or confidence in his own abilities or learning; and this he justly called the foundation of humility and all Christian virtue. Evagrius of Pontus, who had distinguished himself at Constantinople by his learning, and had retired to Jerusalem, and thence into the deserts of Nitria in 385, expressed his surprise to our saint, that many very learned men made no progress in virtue, whilst many Egyptians who knew not the very letters of the alphabet arrived at a high degree of sublime contemplation. To whom Arsenius made this answer: “We make no progress in virtue, because we dwell in that exterior learning which puffs up the mind; but these illiterate Egyptians have a true sense of their own weakness, blindness, and insufficiency; by which they are qualified to labor successfully in the pursuit of virtue.” This saint used often to cry out to God with tears, in the most profound sentiment of humility, “O Lord, forsake me not; I have done nothing that can be acceptable in thy sight; but for the sake of thy infinite mercy enable and assist me that I may now begin to serve thee faithfully.”

Nothing is so remarkable or so much spoken of by the ancients concerning our saint, as the perpetual tears which flowed from his eyes almost without intermission. The source from which they sprung was the ardor with which he sighed after the glorious light of eternity, and the spirit of compunction with which he never ceased to bewail the sins of his life past, and the daily imperfections into which he fell. But nothing was more amiable or sweet than these tears of devotion, as appeared in the venerable and majestic serenity of his countenance. His example was a proof of what the saints assure us concerning the sweetness of the tears of divine love. “When you hear tears named,” says St. Chrysostom,¹ “do not represent to yourselves any thing grievous or terrible. They are sweeter than any carnal delights which the world can enjoy.” St. Austin says to the same purpose:² “The tears of devotion are sweeter than the joys of theatres.” St. John Climacus unfolds to us at large the incomparable advantages and holy pleasure of pious tears, and among other things writes thus:³ “I am astonished when I consider the happiness of holy compunction; and I wonder how carnal men can think it affliction. It contains in it a pleasure and spiritual joy as wax does honey. God in an invisible manner visits and comforts the heart that is broken with this holy sorrow.” Saint Arsenius being asked by a certain person what he must do to deliver himself from a troublesome temptation of impure thoughts, the saint gave him this answer,—“What did the Midianites do? They decked and adorned their daughters, and led them to the Israelites, though they used no violence upon them. Those among the servants of God that treated them with severity, and revenged their treachery and criminal designs with their blood, put a stop to their lewdness. Behave in the same manner with regard to your evil thoughts. Repulse them vigorously, and punish yourself for this attempt made in yourself owards a revolt.”

This great saint lived in a continual remembrance and apprehension of death and the divine judgment. This made Theophilus, the busy patriarch of Alexandria, cry out when he lay on his death-bed in 312: “Happy Arsenius! who has had this moment always before his eyes.” His tears did not disfigure his countenance, which, from the inward peace and joy of his soul, mixed with sweet compunction; and from his assiduous conversation with God, appeared to have something angelical or heavenly; being equally venerable for a certain shining beauty, and an inexpressible air of majesty and meekness, in a fair and vigorous old age. The great and experienced master in a contemplative life, St. John Climacus, proposes St. Arsenius as an accomplished model, and calls him a man equal to the angels,⁴ saying that he shunned so rigorously the conversation of men, only that he might not lose something more precious, which was God, who always filled his soul. Our saint called it a capital and indispensable duty of a monk never to intermeddle in any temporal concerns, and never to listen to any news of the world. He was tall and comely, but stooped a little in his old age; had a graceful mien, his hair was all white, and his beard reached down to his girdle; but the tears which he shed continually had worn away his eyelashes. He was forty years old when he quitted the court, and he lived in the same austere manner from that time to the age of ninety-five; he spent forty years in the desert of Sceté, except that about the year 395, he was obliged to leave it for a short time, on account of an irruption of the Mazici, a barbarous people of Lybia; but the plunderers were no sooner returned home but he hastened back to his former solitude, where he remained till a second inroad of the same barbarians, in which they massacred several hermits, compelled him entirely to forsake this abode about the year 434. He retired weeping to the rock of Troë, called also Petra, over against Memphis, and ten years after, to Canopus near Alexandria; but not being able to bear the neighborhood of that great city, he stayed here only three years; then returned to Troë, where he died two years after. Knowing that his end was drawing near he said to his disciples,—“One only thing I beg of your charity, that when I am dead I may be remembered in the holy sacrifice. If in my life I have done any thing that is accepted by God, through his mercy, that I shall now find again.” They were much grieved to hear him speak as if they were going soon to lose him. Upon which he said, “My hour is not yet come. I will acquaint you of it; but you shall answer at the tribunal of Christ, if you suffer any thing belonging to me to be kept as a relic.” They said with tears (being solicitous for a funeral procession), “What shall we do alone, father? for we know not how to bury the dead.” The saint answered, “Tie a cord to my feet, and drag my carcass to the top of the mountain, and there leave it.” His brethren seeing him weep in his agony, said to him, “Father, why do you weep? are you like others, afraid to die?” The saint answered, “I am seized with great fear: nor has this dread ever forsaken me from the time I first came into these deserts.” The saints all serve God in fear and trembling, in the constant remembrance of his judgment; but this is always accompanied with a sweet confidence in his infinite love and mercies. The Holy Ghost indeed so diversifies his gifts and graces as to make these dispositions more sensible in some than in others. Notwithstanding this fear, St. Arsenius expired in great peace, full of faith, and of that humble confidence which perfect charity inspires, about the year 449. He was ninety-five years old, of which he had spent fifty-five in the desert. Abbot Pemen having seen him expire, said with tears, “Happy Arsenius! who have wept for yourself so much here on earth! Those who weep not here shall weep eternally hereafter.” This saint was looked upon by the most eminent monks of succeeding ages as a most illustrious pattern of their state. The great St. Euthymius endeavored in all his exercises to form himself upon the model of his life, and to copy in himself his humility, his meekness and constant evenness of mind, his abstinences and watching, his compunction and tears, his love of retirement, his charity, discretion, fervor, assiduous application to prayer, and that greatness of soul which appeared with so much lustre in all his actions. The name of St. Arsenius occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 19th of July. See his life written by St. Theodore the Studite; and another in Metaphrastes; also the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, in Rosweide and D’Andilly, t. 2, p. 183, collated with a very fair ancient MS. probably of Saint Edmund’s-bury, more ample than that published by Rosweide, in the hands of Mr. Martin, attorney at law in Palgrave, in Suffolk. See likewise the Apophthegms of the Fathers in Cotelier’s Monumenta Ecclesiæ Græcæ; the collections and remarks of Pinius the Bollandist, Jul. t. 4, p. 605, and F. Marian, Vies des Pères des Déserts d’Orient, t. 3, p. 284 ad 339.

St. Symmachus, Pope, C.

He was a native of Sardinia, and archdeacon of the Roman church under pope Anastasius, and succeeded him in the holy see in 498. Festus, the patrician, had been gained by Anastasius, emperor of Constantinople, and a protector of the Eutychians, to endeavor to procure from pope Anastasius a confirmation of the Henoticon of Zeno, an imperial edict in favor of those heretics, as Theophanes relates. That pope dying, Festus, by bribes, gained several voices to raise Laurence, archpriest of St. Praxedes, to the pontificate. They were both ordained the same day; Symmachus in the basilic of Constantine, and Laurence in that of our lady. Theodoric, king of Italy, though an Arian, ordered that election should take place which was first, and made by the greater number. By this rule Symmachus was acknowledged lawful pope. He called a council at Rome of seventy-three bishops, and sixty-seven priests, which, to prevent cabals and factions in the elections of popes, ordained that if any one promised his vote to another, or deliberated in any assembly upon that subject, whilst the pope is living, he should be deposed and excommunicated; and that after the pope’s death that person should be duly elected who had a majority of the voices of the clergy. Laurence subscribed these decrees the first among the priests,¹ and was afterward made bishop of Nocera. Soon after, some of the clergy and senators, by the contrivance of Festus and Probinus, privately recalled Laurence to Rome, and renewed the schism, which is by many historians reckoned the first that happened in that church, though Novatian had attempted to form one. The schismatics accused Symmachus of many crimes, and king Theodoric commanded a synod should be held at Rome upon that occasion. The bishops of Liguria, Emilia, and Venetia took Ravenna in their way to Rome, and strongly represented to the king, that the pope himself ought to call the council, which right he enjoyed both by the primacy of his see, derived from St. Peter, and by the authority of councils; also, that there never had been an intsance of his being subjected to the judgment of his inferiors.² The king showed them the pope’s letters by which he agreed to, and summoned the council. Indeed the pontifical says, that Symmachus assembled this council.³

The synod met at Rome in September, 501, and declared pope Symmachus acquitted of the accusations entered against him, condemning to be punished as schismatics any who should celebrate mass without his consent; but pardoning those who had raised the schism, provided they gave satisfaction to the pope.⁴ When this decree was carried into Gaul, all the bishops were alarmed at it; and they charged Saint Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to write about it in the name of them all. He addressed his letter to Faustus and Symmachus. two patricians who had both been consuls, complaining that when the Pope had been accused before the prince, the bishops, instead of opposing such an injustice, had taken upon them to judge him: “For,” says he, “it is not easy to apprehend how the superior can be judged by his inferiors, especially the head of the Church.” However, he commends the council for bearing testimony to his innocence, and earnestly entreats the senate to maintain the honor of the Church, and not to suffer the flocks to rise up against their pastors. The famous deacon Paschasius, a man eminent for his great alms-deeds and other good works, had the misfortune blindly to abet this schism to the latter end of his life; for which St. Gregory the Great relates, upon the authority of a certain revelation,⁵ that he was detained in purgatory after his death, but delivered by the prayers of St. Germanus, bishop of Capua. Ceillier thinks that he repented only in his last moments;⁶ or, that simplicity of heart extenuated his sin. Paschasius wrote a learned book on the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, though the two books on that subject which now bear his name, are the work of Faustus of Riez.

Pope Symmachus wrote to the emperor Anastasius declaring that he could not hold communion with him so long as he maintained that of Acacius. That prince expected such a menace from the zeal of the pope, and therefore he had not written to him upon his promotion, according to custom. He also accused him of Manicheism, though Symmachus had banished the Manichees out of Rome; and he did not cease to thwart the pope, dreading his known zeal against his favorite sect of the Acephali. Symmachus composed an apology against this emperor, in which he shows the dignity of the Christian priesthood.⁷ He wrote to the Oriental bishops, exhorting them to suffer banishment and all persecutions rather than to betray the divine truth.⁸ King Thrasimund having banished many Catholic African bishops into Sardinia, pope Symmachus sent them annually both clothes and money; and there is still extant among the works of Ennodius a letter which this pope sent to comfort them. He accompanied it with some relics of the martyrs SS. Nazarius and Romanus. He redeemed many captives; and gave one hundred and seventy-nine pounds of silver in ornaments to several churches in Rome; and to the chapel of the holy cross, a gold cross of ten pound weight, in which he inclosed a piece of the true cross. On a ciborium, that is, in the language of that time, a tabernacle, which he gave to St. Paul’s church, he caused to be engraved the figures of our Saviour and the twelve apostles. He instituted that the hymn of divine praise called the Gloria in Excelsis should be sung on every Sunday, and on the festivals of martyrs, as the pontifical testifies. He filled the papal chair fifteen years and eight months; and died on the 19th of July, 514. See his letters, the councils, and Anastasius Bibl. Also F. Amort’s Diss. on the cause of pope Symmachus, printed at Bologna in 1758.

St. Macrina, Virgin

She was the eldest of all the ten children of St. Basil the elder, and St. Emmelia; and being trained up in excellent sentiments of piety, after the death of her father, consecrated her virginity by vow to God, and was a great assistant to her mother in educating her younger brothers and sisters. St. Basil the Great, St. Peter of Sebaste, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and the rest, learned from her their early contempt of the world, dread of its dangers, and application to prayer and the word of God. When they were sent abroad for their improvement, Macrina induced her mother to concur with her in founding two monasteries, one for men, the other for women, at a little distance from each other, on their own estate, near Ibora in Pontus. That of men was first governed by St. Basil, afterward by St. Peter. Macrina drew up the rules for the nunnery with admirable prudence and piety, and established in it the love and spirit of the most universal poverty, and disengagement from the world, mortification, humility, assiduous prayer, and singing of psalms. God was pleased to afflict her with a most painful cancer: which at length her mother cured by making, at her request, the sign of the cress upon the sore; only a black spot remained ever