The record of this endeavor to escape office reads singularly enough. He first put some criminals to the torture, hoping by this means to shock the people through his hard-hearted justice. When this would not do he avowed philosophic rather than Christian sentiments. Having again failed, he welcomed some very profligate persons—men and women—to his palace in a way to invite scandal. This expedient being also detected he actually escaped from the city by night, but lost his way and found himself in front of the gates when morning dawned. This being his fourth unavailing effort, he fled to a friend’s house in the country, begging that he might lie hidden there until the first rush of feeling had been stemmed and he could hope for calmer consideration of his refusal. But the friend immediately betrayed him for his own good, and this well-meant treachery fastened the mitre firmly on his brow. Basil the Great gloried in this new coadjutor; and at the age of thirty-four or thereabouts, he himself became convinced that he could struggle no longer against his fate. It was thus that Ambrose finally assumed the episcopate, and it was soon evident that this catechumen—for he had not even been previously baptized—respected its dignities and meant that others should be of the same mind as himself. He gave up his private fortune, selling his large estates and personal property, and reserving from them only a proper allowance to his sister Marcellina, who had early taken the vow of virginity. He associated with this proceeding the most strict method of living. “He accepted no invitations to banquets; took dinner only on Sunday, Saturday, and the festivals of celebrated martyrs; devoted the greater part of the night to prayer, to the hitherto necessarily neglected study of the Scriptures and the Greek fathers and to theological writing; preached every Sunday and often in the week; was accessible to all, most accessible to the poor and needy; and administered his spiritual oversight, particularly his instruction of catechumens, with the greatest fidelity.” This is the character, admirably condensed, of a model bishop. To its fulfilment it requires the fervent piety of a true Christian and the constant zeal of an acute student together with the large prudence of a man of affairs. All these are abundantly found in Ambrose. And if it happened that in other and worse times his assertion of the spiritual independence of a bishop gave a foundation for what became the authority of the pope, it may be properly retorted that for him not to have done so then would have prevented many another better thing in later ages.