Although idolatry was formerly very common among these pagans, who practiced it on every trivial occasion, our Lord has been pleased so to diminish it that hardly anything is now known of it. Two children, whose mother was sick, took three fowls for the purpose of making a sacrifice to the demon. While on the way to the house of the priestess (who in that country is usually old, and belongs to a mean class), one of the children said to the other: "Whither are we going, and what are we doing--we who are Christians and know that God sees us? Let us give up this purpose." With this they abandoned their projected sacrifice, and returning to their home, set the fowls at liberty. The practice of disciplining on Fridays was begun, and was taken up by all the children and the adults of the village. On the first night when they assembled for this purpose, the father made known to them the spirit in which it should be done, and so profoundly impressed them that they soon named Friday (which is the usual day for the discipline) "the day of atonement for sins." Some notable incidents in Dulac. Chapter XXXXIX. In this residence, from the month of June in the year ninety-eight to January in the year ninety-nine, there were solemnly baptized more than one hundred catechumens who greatly desired the sacrament and prepared themselves very carefully for holy baptism. This did not include the sick, who through the mercy of God had been but few that year; but among these sick persons, both children and adults, was experienced the virtue of this holy sacrament for bodily health. Some persons who were covered with leprosy and their recovery despaired of, were restored by baptism to so good health that, although borne down by years, they were able to till the soil and sow their fields. I wish to relate the faith of a pagan woman whose husband, also a pagan, lay sick. Believing his condition to be dangerous, she persuaded him to accept baptism. For this purpose she sent for the father, and, when the latter asked the sick man if he desired baptism or instruction, she helped him to make his answers. The father, observing her to be so capable and so desirous of the welfare of her husband, inquired if she also wished to become a Christian. She answered affirmatively, saying that she had heard in the church that only the good Christians went to heaven, and that those who were not Christians must burn in hell; and that for the sake of retaining her husband's affection she was not willing to die an infidel, and come to so bad an end. Finally, when it seemed that the sick man was well prepared, and his sickness was becoming dangerous, he was baptized, and then our Lord was pleased to give him health--whereat the good woman was more than ever anxious to receive baptism for herself. After they were both baptized, they received the nuptial benediction, as do all the other married people who are baptized, renewing their marriage according to Christian usage.