St. James was a Persian noble. The king declared war against the Christians, and the noble had not firmness to refuse. His wife and mother, however, being Christians, and shocked to see this, upbraided him, and wrote a letter that they renounced him for ever. This sank into his soul, and he withdrew from the Court, bewailing the crime he had committed; and the king, hearing of his change of views, was enraged, and, after calling the Council of Ministers, they all agreed that James should be hung on the rack, and his limbs cut off, joint after joint. The executioners, after entreating him in vain to recant, with their scimitars cut off his right thumb. The judge and bystanders, in tears, called out to him that it was enough, and he ought to surrender. But he exulted, and finger after finger was cut off; then the little toe of the left foot, and all the other toes. After fingers and toes and arms and feet left him only a trunk weltering in his blood, he continued to pray and speak cheerfully, till at last a guard severed the head from the body. This happened in 421. The Christians offered a large sum to obtain the relics, but were refused. They, however, watched an opportunity, and collected them by stealth, finding the limbs in twenty-eight different places. They were all buried in an urn, and in a place concealed from the heathen. The glory of this martyr was renowned in all the Persian, Syrian, Greek, and Latin Churches. STEPHEN A MARTYR FOR IMAGE WORSHIP (A.D. 720). During the controversy raised by the iconoclasts, when all the monks resisted the decrees against image worship, one monk, Stephen, a hermit who had lived thirty years in a cave at Sinope, greatly distinguished himself. The monks had flocked to the desert to watch in security over their tutelary images, and the most devout of the laity crowded round the cell of Stephen, who furiously denounced the iconoclasts. So many pilgrims resorted to him as their champion that the Emperor ordered him to be carried away from his cell, and shut up in a cloister at Chrysopolis. This act drove the other monks to frenzy. One named Andrew hastened from his dwelling in the desert and boldly confronted the Emperor in the church of St. Mammas, and sternly addressed him thus: "If thou art a Christian, why do you treat Christians with such indignity?" The Emperor commanded his temper, but after again ordering this monk into his presence, the latter was so violent and scornful that the Emperor ordered him to be scourged. Stephen, however, continued to thunder from his cell against the iconoclasts, and mounted a pillar to be better heard; and other monks flocked and built their cells round this pillar. But this did not satisfy Stephen, who returned to the city and openly denounced and defied the Emperor, and collected a large following. The Emperor ordered him to prison. His followers on hearing of his majesty's annoyance at last rushed