Entering the city, the publican saw this sad spectacle--the governor, the priestesses, the car, Minerva, and the seven maidens. He runs to throw himself on his knees in a hut, along with a nephew of St. Thecusa. He beseeches heaven that the seven ladies should be dead rather than naked. His prayer is heard; he learns that the seven damsels, instead of being deflowered, have been thrown into the lake with stones round their necks, by order of the governor. Their virginity is in safe-keeping. At this news the saint, raising himself from the ground and placing himself upon his knees, turned his eyes towards heaven; and in the midst of the various emotions he experienced of love, joy, and gratitude, he said, "I give Thee thanks, O Lord! that Thou has not rejected the prayer of Thy servant." He slept; and during his sleep, St. Thecusa, the youngest of the drowned women, appeared to him. "How now, son Theodotus!" she said, "you are sleeping without thinking of us: have you forgotten so soon the care I took of your youth? Do not, dear Theodotus, suffer our bodies to be devoured by the fishes. Go to the lake, but beware of a traitor." This traitor was, in fact, the nephew of St. Thecusa. I omit here a multitude of miraculous adventures that happened to the publican, in order to come to the most important. A celestial cavalier, armed _cap-a-pie, _preceded by a celestial flambeau, descends from the height of the empyrean, conducts the publican to the lake in the midst of storms, drives away all the soldiers who guard the shore, and gives Theodotus time to fish up the seven old women and to bury them. The nephew of St. Thecusa unfortunately went and told all. Theodotus was seized, and for three days all sorts of punishments were tried in vain to kill him. They could only attain their object by cleaving his skull; an operation which saints are never proof against. He was still to be buried. His friend the minister Fronton--to whom Theodotus, in his capacity of publican, had given two leathern bottles filled with wine--made the guards drunk, and carried off the body. Theodotus then appeared in body and spirit to the minister: "Well, my friend," he said to him, "did I not say well, that you should have relics for your chapel?" Such is what is narrated by St. Nil, an eye-witness, who could neither be deceived nor deceive; such is what Don Ruinart has quoted as a genuine act. Now every man of sense, every intelligent Christian, will ask himself, whether a better mode could be adopted of dishonoring the most holy and venerated religion in the world, and of turning it into ridicule?