[Illustration: DEATH OF S. JOSEPH. March 19.] Pancharius, a young Christian, well-favoured, and active, having gained the favour of the emperor Maximian, became his secretary. His mother and sister, hearing this, were filled with anxiety lest his soul should be imperilled. They therefore wrote to him a letter urging him not to be ashamed of Christ, and to remember that it profits a man little to gain the whole world if he lose his own soul. On reading this letter, Pancharius was moved, and lifting up his voice he prayed to God, "Have mercy upon me, Almighty God, and bring not thy servant to confusion in the face of men and angels, but according to thy great mercy, spare me." Some one overheard this prayer, and told the emperor that his favourite was a Nazarene. The emperor sent for him and asked him if this were true. Then the young man confessed that he was. The emperor urged him to renounce his religion. But as Pancharius refused, he ordered him to be scourged, and sent to Nicomedia to be tried and sentenced by the governor. At Nicomedia he was subjected to fresh interrogation, but maintaining his constancy, was condemned to execution by the sword. S. JOHN, AB. AT CIVITA-DI-PENNE. (4TH CENT.) [Usuardus, Ado, Notker, some copies of Bede's Martyrology, and the Roman Martyrology. Authority:--An ancient life published by the Bollandists, but evidently founded on tradition.] The life of this saint shall be translated from the original, as it deserves, from its quaint simplicity and freshness. "It fell out in those days that as the blessed John was going forth from Syria, he prayed, saying, 'Lord God of heaven and earth, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and of our Fathers, who madest heaven and earth with all their adornments, who by a word didst suspend the sea, who didst close the abyss and sign above it gloriously, whose mighty name all things revere, and before the face of whose virtue all things quake; I pray Thee, who art the true light, illumine me hoping in thee, and make my way prosperous before me, in which I go, and let this be to me for a sign that there I should rest, when that person to whom I give my psalter shall not return it to me the self-same day.' "And it came to pass that he came to Italy, and was near to the metropolitan city (of Spoleto) and had gone about five miles into the Angellan farm, when he met with a certain handmaiden of God, and he gave to her his psalter. And afterwards he asked the handmaid for it again, and she said, 'Servant of God, whither goest thou? Tarry here, and go thy way to-morrow.' And when they had long spoken, she insisted that he should remain there that night; so he remained. And the blessed John remembered his prayer that he had made, and he said in his heart, 'Verily this is what I besought of the Lord; here will I dwell.'