Night closed in over the city. The shops were shut; the streets were still. Men went not willingly forth into the bitter cold. No friendly cloud hung in the sky--it was a clear, starry night;--the constellations glowed in the intense frost. The citizens heaped up their fires, and gathered closer around them. The soldiers canvassed the constancy of the sufferers. There, on the frozen pool, stood the martyrs of Jesus Christ. From the open door of the hut, a bright cheerful gleam of fire-light shone; reflecting itself on the clear dark ice. Some presently fell, and slept that sleep which ends only in death; some walked hurriedly up and down, as if to keep in the heat of life; some stood with their arms folded, almost lost in prayer; some consoled themselves and their brethren in the conflict. They prayed earnestly that He, who had in a special manner consecrated the number forty to Himself; who had bade Moses tarry in the mount forty days, who had fed Elijah with that food, in the strength whereof he went forty days and forty nights; who had given Nineveh forty days for repentance; they called on Him who had Himself fasted forty days, and had lain forty hours in death, not to fail them then. "Forty wrestlers," they said, "O Lord, we have entered the arena; let forty victors receive the prize!" One of the soldiers guarding the pond was waiting by the fire, and slept. And in his sleep he beheld this vision. He stood by the side of the pool, and saw the martyrs in their conflict. As he gazed on them, an angel came down from the sky with a golden crown in his hands. Its brightness was not of this world; it was most bright, most beautiful. He brought another, and another, and another, till the dreamer perceived that he was charged with the everlasting diadems of the victorious martyrs. Nine-and-thirty crowns he brought, but he came not with the fortieth. "What may this mean?" he asked, as he awoke. As he was wondering, there was a stir without, and the soldiers brought in one of the confessors. He could endure it no more, he had come to the fire and the warm bath. He who had dreamed went forth. Still the cloudless night; still the intense piercing blast from the range of the Caucasus. Most of the sufferers, on the frozen pool, had fallen where they stood. To them the bitterness of death was past; for they were in the last fatal sleep; and their diadem, though not yet attained, were certain. Others were praying, "Forty wrestlers we have entered the arena; let forty victors receive the prize." O wonderful power of prayer in all! but most wonderful virtue of intercession in Christ's martyrs! At that moment a thought rushed into the mind of the soldier; a thought so sweet, so cheering, that the bitter Armenian night seemed to him as pleasant as the breath of a May morning. "One has fallen from his crown; I may attain to it."