do with me as you will." After this pretended trial, he was placed upon a terrace, where Constans, concealed behind the window-blinds of an apartment, was able to satisfy his malice by the sight of his victim's sufferings. Here one of the emperor's officials tauntingly addressed the Pope in presence of the assembled crowd; "See," he said, "how God has delivered thee into our hands. Thou thoughtest to resist the emperor. Hopeless attempt! thou hast forsaken God, and God has forsaken thee." Forthwith he commanded one of the guards to tear the Pope's cloak, and cried out to the people to anathematize him; but they, for the most part, cast down their eyes to conceal their tears, or retired with smothered sobs from the woeful scene. Then was the spiritual father of Christ's flock on earth given up, like his Divine Master, into the hands of cruel executioners. They stripped him of his sacerdotal garments, leaving him but a simple tunic to cover his naked limbs, which, indeed, appeared through the long rents which they had made in it. They put a collar of iron round his neck, and dragged him from the palace through the city, chained to the execu tioner; while another carried a drawn sword

before him, to show that he was condemned to death. The holy martyr opened not his lips to complain, but bore his torments with a serene countenance, while the people burst forth in tears and lamentations. He was then laden with chains and cast into prison; and so rudely did they drag him up the staircase that the steps were all stained with his blood. At length the emperor, fearing to put him to death, sent him to a distant and barbarous region, whence six months later the Lord called him to receive his heavenly crown.

You have seen now how the Greek emperors treated their Italian subjects; how they forsook them in their need and pillaged them in their weakness, tearing and devouring the flock which it was their duty to protect; and you have seen also how they treated the chief shepherd of Christendom, requiting him with chains and death for the compassion with which he bound up the wounds of their afflicted subjects, and for the heroic charity with which he placed himself as a shield between them and the invader. But in all this the hand of God is manifest. He was overruling these events for the accomplishment of His designs. As he permitted pagan Rome to be

trodden down of barbarians, to raise a Christian city on its ruins, so did He suffer the people to be deserted by their rulers, to make way for the temporal dominion of His Vicar on earth.