Cornelius, the centurion, was officer of the Italian band at Cæsarea. He was a devout proselyte, who feared God, with all his household, and gave much alms to the poor and prayed often and earnestly to God. He saw in a vision an angel, who told him that his prayers and alms had come up for a memorial before God, and that he was now to hear the words of Salvation, and to be instructed in the fulness of divine truth. He was to send to Joppa, to the house of one Simon, a tanner, for S. Peter, the prince of the Apostles, who would instruct and baptize him. This he accordingly did, and S. Peter, hastening to Cæsarea, baptized him and all his house. And the Holy Ghost fell upon them. Cornelius was afterwards, by S. Peter, ordained bishop of Cæsarea, where he strove mightily to advance the kingdom of Christ, and witnessed a good confession before the chief magistrate. He died at a ripe old age, and was buried secretly in a tomb belonging to a friend, a Christian of wealth. And, it is said, that a bramble grew over the spot and laced the entrance over with its thorny arms, so that none could enter in till S. Silvanus, bishop of Philippopolis, in Thrace, in the beginning of the 5th century, hacked away the bramble, and discovered, and translated the sacred relics. S. LAURENCE, ABP. OF CANTERBURY. (A.D. 619.) [Roman and other Western Martyrologies. Authorities:--Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 4, 6, 7. Malmesbury lib. de Gest. Pontif. Angl.] Laurence was one of the first missionaries to the Saxons, who came over with S. Augustine; and he succeeded the Apostle of England in the see of Canterbury, in 608, in which he sat eleven years. Bede says, "Laurence succeeded Augustine in the bishopric, having been ordained thereto by the latter, in his lifetime, lest, upon his death, the state of the Church, as yet unsettled, might begin to falter, if it were destitute of a pastor, though but for one hour. Wherein he followed the example of the first pastor of the Church, Peter, who, having founded the Church of Christ at Rome, is said to have consecrated Clement his assistant in preaching the Gospel, and at the same time, his successor. Laurence, being advanced to the degree of archbishop, laboured indefatigably, both by frequent exhortations and examples of piety, to raise to perfection the foundation of the Church, which had been so nobly laid. In short, he not only took care of the new Church formed among the English, but endeavoured also to employ his pastoral solicitude among the ancient inhabitants of Britain, as also among the Scots, who inhabited the island of Ireland. For when he understood that the course of life and profession of the Scots, as well as that of the Britons, was not truly ecclesiastical, especially that they did not celebrate Easter at the correct time, he wrote jointly with his fellow-bishops, an exhortatory epistle, entreating and conjuring them to observe unity of peace, and