Long centuries ago, a young man of aristocratic birth, handsome person, polished manners, brilliant and highly cultivated intellect, was walking, on a day in the reign of the Emperor Julian, by the bank of the river Orontes, not far from the stately city of Antioch, the Paris of that age,--and saw something floating in the stream. The branch of a tree enabled him to drag it ashore; it proved to be a copy of the sacred Scriptures; Julian, the mad master of the world, had issued an edict, annexed to which were heavy penalties, that all copies of that book should be destroyed. The young man who drew the manuscript to shore had been taught the lessons of that volume from a child, by his pious mother, Anthusa; but he had thrown off the yoke of his mother's faith; had become a devotee of heathen philosophy, poetry and rhetoric, and at the same time steeped himself in the licentious pleasures and dissipations of the Grove of Daphne, the Hippodrome and Theatre, and resolved that "the man Christ Jesus should not reign over him." He opened the parchment, some words on the page caught his eye; they were familiar, yet shone with a new light and were armed with irresistible power: he read on; his mother's prayers were answered; he embraced the truth, bowed his neck to the yoke he had foresworn, and the volume he rescued from the flood became a treasure-trove for the world,--through fifteen centuries alike in the east and west,--that man has been known as St. John Chrysostom, the "Mouth of Gold," one of the most saintly and eloquent preachers, whose life, genius, sufferings and death for conscience's sake adorned the history of mankind.