4. PERPETUA. In the beginning of the third century the Christians were fiercely persecuted in Northern Africa. Among the prisoners at Carthage there was a young woman of noble birth, Perpetua. She was the mother of a nursing child. Her heathen father took the greatest pains to persuade his daughter to forsake Christ. In pleading accents he begged her, "My daughter, have pity upon my gray hairs. Oh, pity your father, if I have ever been worthy of this name! Take pity on your child which cannot survive you. Can nothing move you, my daughter? If you perish we will be disgraced before all men!" In saying this her father kissed her hands and fell down at her feet. But Perpetua did not deny the Lord; she remained firm and resisted all temptations in the strength of Him whom we are to love more than father or mother. On the day before her execution she celebrated the customary love feast with her fellow prisoners, and to the gazing heathen she declared, "Look straight into our faces, that you may know us on the day of judgment!" Filled with consternation and shame, many of the heathen walked away and were converted.--The day of her deliverance approached; the fights with the wild beasts began. Perpetua, together with her maid Felicitas, was thrown to a wild cow, which at once tossed them to the ground. To her brother who stood near she cried, "Abide in the faith, love one another, and do not let my sufferings frighten you!" Finally, she received the death blow at the hands of a gladiator. Thus she entered into glory, and received the crown of life at His hands to whom she proved faithful unto death. CHAPTER III. Constantine and the Spreading of Christianity in Germany.