endured two decimations, and when remonstrance had proved in vain, piled their arms, and let themselves be massacred to the last man rather than violate their conscience. The place where they suffered took the name of their heroic captain, Maurice; the churches of that Alpine valley to this day bear witness by his figure over their altars to that most illustrious act of Christian sacrifice: and beside the place of their repose rises still a monastery which for thirteen hundred and fifty years has guarded the sepulture of a legion of martyrs, and is become one of the most ancient Christian houses of prayer. It cannot be doubted that in the last twenty-five years of the third century the number of Christians was being largely increased, and moreover they were daily gaining the higher ranks of society. Diocletian had reigned for eighteen years, and seemed effectually to have stopped that incessant succession of soldiers gaining the throne by assassination and yielding it in turn to their assassins, which for fifty years threatened to destroy the state. At such a moment it was that Diocletian, belying all the past conduct of his life, let loose against the Christian Church the last, the fiercest, and the longest of the heathen persecutions. It was in truth scarcely less than the rending in pieces the whole social framework when a proclamation of the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, in the year 303, declared that the Christian Faith should cease to exist. How entirely that faith had now penetrated all ranks was shown in Diocletian’s own household, wherein his most trusted(307) chamberlains, beloved as his children, were cruelly tortured because they refused to worship the heathen gods, while his wife Prisca and his daughter Valeria purchased immunity for the present by compliance. We have the emperor described by an eye-witness of those times as himself sitting in judgment,(308) and putting men to the torture of fire. The same power was delegated to the governors throughout the provinces. “It was,” says Eusebius, “the nineteenth year of Diocletian’s reign, in the month of March, when the festival of the Lord’s Passion was drawing near, that imperial edicts were everywhere published, ordering the churches to be levelled, the scriptures to be burnt, those of rank to be deprived of it, the common people, if they remained faithful, to be reduced to slavery. This was the first edict against us; another soon came enjoining that all those who ruled the churches should first be imprisoned, and then by every means compelled to sacrifice.”(309) Lactantius adds that every action at law was to proceed against Christians, while they should not be allowed to claim the law for any wrong inflicted, or spoliation suffered, or dishonour done to their wives.(310) Many in consequence of these edicts suffered willingly terrible torments: many others at first gave way. What these torments were Eusebius describes: some were beaten; some torn with hooks.(311) “It is