own life. His colleague, Maximian Herculeus, was compelled to hang himself, A. D. 310. Maximian Galerius, the most cruel author of Dioclesian's persecution, expired in the greatest agonies of a dreadful distemper, which consumed him day and night with inexpressible pains, and reduced him to a mere skeleton. Maxentius was overcome by Constantine, and drowned in the Tiber. Maximinus II. after he had been defeated by Licinius, was compelled by him to repeal his edicts against the Christians, and died in 313, in exquisite torments, under a distemper not unlike that of Galerius. For whilst his army was drawn up in the field, he was lurking and hiding his cowardly head at home; and, flying to Tarsus, not knowing where to find a place of refuge, on land or sea, but scared every where with his fears, he was struck with a sore distemper over his whole body. In the most acute and insufferable anguish, he rolled himself upon the ground, and pined away by long fasting, so that he looked like a withered and dried skeleton. At last, he who had put out the eyes of the Christians, lost his own sight, and his eyes started out of his head; and, yet still breathing and confessing his sins, he called upon death to come and release him, which, as Eusebius relates, advanced very slowly, and arrived not until he had acknowledged that he deserved what he suffered for his cruelty, and for the insults which he had committed against Jesus Christ. Eusebius adds that all the rulers of provinces, who had acted under him, and persecuted the Christians, were put to death :-Picentius, his principal favorite;-Culcianus, in Egypt;―Theotecnus, and others. Urbanus, the cruel Governor of Palestine, had been convicted of many crimes at Cæsaria, and condemned to a shameful death by Maximinus himself; and his successor Firmilianus had met with the same fate from the hands of his master, whom, by his cruelties, he had studied to please. Licinius, the last of these persecutors, was a worthless and stupid prince, who could neither read nor write his own name; he hated all men of learning, and was a foe to religion. He, to please Constantine, for some time favoured the Christians, and pretended to be ready to become one of them; but at last he threw off the mask of hypocrisy, and persecuted the Church. He was then conquered and put to death by Constantine, A. D. 323. ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. A. D. 600. About the year Six Hundred of our Lord, THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. When marshall'd on the nightly plain, The glitt'ring host bestud the sky; One star alone, of all the train, Can fix the sinner's wand'ring eye. Hark! hark! to God the chorus breaks, From every host, from every gem; But one alone the Saviour speaks, It is the STAR OF BETHLEHEM! |