being either in direct contact with its object, or separated therefrom by only a few removes, offered as ordinary phenomena such displays of simplicity, intensity, and enthusiasm, as are now-a-days characteristic of a minority of its adherents. The offence of the Cross once being surmounted on the part of its converts, there was little to dread on this account from the chilling effects of a heartless criticism that denied its historical accessories. The Christians of the earliest times had been called to the assumption of new privileges. They found themselves suddenly promoted to "an honour unto which they were not born." The salvation of Jesus rose on them as life did on Adam. Noon, to them, sprang at once resplendent from the dusky arms of midnight. Love hath, in some sort, suffered loss of freshness in transmission to us, their descendants. We were born to the estate, and do not trace so readily what we owe. Sons of many Christian generations, and taught to lisp of our great inheritance, our ancestral beggary fades from before us, retiring almost too far off for contrast. Nearer to heathenism, from which they or their fathers had been only just redeemed, and surrounded by which they lived, it was natural, on the other hand, that the earlier Christians should have a less clear perception of many of the demands and of the scope of their religion than we who have well-nigh worn out the taint of Pagan blood.

One of the practical errors into which they were liable to fall, and into which many of them did historically fall, was the prodigality with which they lavished on a scenic martyrdom their unsought blood. Theirs was the boast of Addison-itself not in perfect taste-self-roused into defiance, and enlarged to spectacular proportions:-" See how we Christians can die!' Thus they rushed to martyrdom, forgetful that to provoke or to compel other men to acts of wrong, or even wantonly to give others the opportunity of sinning against us, is, in deepest truth, to sin

WHAT IS A MARTYR?

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against them; is to do our best to turn the streams of justice upwards to their sources, to bring back chaos, to place the world under the dominion of violence, and to enthrone the devil. There is no Christian grace which is not founded on justice all round; to ourselves, as from others, to others as from ourselves. Read in this light, the precept which enjoins the turning of the left cheek to the striker of the other, is applicable only where there are good grounds for believing that the left cheek, so turned, will not be smitten. Satan seldom puts on the appearance of an angel of light with more effect than when an unprincipled weakness masks itself as Christian humility, forbearance, and charity,

It is, of course, unnecessary to declare that we have no wish to dim a single gem on the brows of the martyrs, whose Te Deum is accompanied by every Christian lip, and "whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the Churches." The jewels in their crowns do not owe their lightning lustre to the "applausive thunder" of a world-ful of admirers, but to the sustaining grace of God—to the faith, love, and endurance, with which He gifted them.

Seeing that all were "not martyrs who were of the martyrs," it may be well to fix, if possible, what is the meaning of the expression martyr, to the etymological significance of which we have already in a few words adverted; or, to put it at once into the form in which we are at present called upon to define it—what is contained in the expression, Christian martyr? These two thingstwo which are, strictly speaking, one; for the latter is contained in the former—(1) that the martyr should suffer for Christ; and (2) that his martyrdom should be necessary. These two things, we say, are not really two; for if a martyrdom be not necessary-called for, that is, directly or indirectly, in order to prevent dishonour to the Christian name-it is the glory of self, and not of Christ, that is really sought and achieved in it. That man is as certainly

a fool and a suicide who throws away his life without cause, as that man is a coward who withholds his life upon reasons shown for its surrender. The ideal martyr is he, who, neither painfully and ignobly avoiding death on the one hand, nor vaingloriously courting it on the other, simply does his duty without reference to it, and faces it only when it is brought before him, without the alternative of honourable escape, in the good providence of Him in whose hands are the times of all men (Psalm xxxi. 15).

The following Hymnus de Martyribus, the production of an unknown author, of the eighth or ninth century, is written in praise of those who were martyrs indeed. Its opening line will be recognised, Sanctorum meritis inclyta gaudia. The translation is from the Rev. Edward Caswall's "Lyra Catholica; containing all the Hymns of the Roman Breviary and Missal."

Sing we the peerless deeds of martyred saints,
Their glorious merits, and their portion blest ;
Of all the conquerors the world has seen,
The greatest and the best.

Them in their day the insensate world abhorred,
Because they did forsake it, Lord, for Thee;
Finding it all a barren waste, devoid

Of fruit, or flower, or tree.

They trod beneath them every threat of man,
And came victorious all torments through;
The iron hooks, which piecemeal tore their flesh,
Could not their souls subdue.

Scourged, crucified, like sheep to slaughter led,
Unmurmuring they met their cruel fate;
For conscious innocence their souls upheld,
In patient virtue great.

What tongue those joys, O Jesus, can disclose,

Which for thy martyred saints Thou dost prepare!

Happy who in Thy pains, thrice happy those

Who in Thy glory share!

DIVERS VICTORS OVER DEATH.

Our faults, our sins, our miseries remove,
Great Deity supreme, immortal King!

Grant us Thy peace, grant us Thine endless love
Through endless years to sing.

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The most generous class of volunteer martyrs—of martyrs without a distinct and specific vocation-was made up of men who thought they were necessarily doing their Master's will and work, if they did but increase the number of witnesses to the death-sustaining power of His religion. But such a power is not one of the evidences of Christianity; if for no other reason than that it is not peculiar to Christianity. All religions have this power, in common with the negation of all religion; all noble and ignoble passions have it, as well as the negation of all passion. "There is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore, death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspires to it; grief flieth to it; fear pre-occupieth it; nay, we read after Otho the Emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections), provoked many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers; nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety: Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest. A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and

The thought of the foregoing extract from Lord Bacon is substantially presented in the following short poem, one of the "Holy Sonnets" of Dr. Donne; which may, indeed, have been indebted to the passage just quoted for its immediate suggestion. With the divine, as was becoming,

* Lord Bacon's Essays: Of Death.

the ultimate and most rational defiance of death has its best warrant in the prospect of a Resurrection.

Death, be not proud; though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me :
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more,
must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go-
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery,

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And doth with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

And poppy, or charms, can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
Our short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

In another class of volunteer sufferers, only, but still really, less generous than the first, the tendency to an uncalled-for sacrifice arose from a desire to anticipate the joys of an assured and certain Heaven. With a pious perversity they seem to have persuaded themselves that that evil was good, of which they were the victims. Yet if amidst their bravely endured tortures they could but have analysed their fanaticism, they must have recognised a subtler form of self-love intruding on their devotion to Christ. The riddle of the existence of evil is too intricate to excuse its being rendered more involved by the importation of amateur suffering. The pain and affliction which God sends, are sent autocratically—it is HE who sends them; but it is absurd to suppose that He who has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, can have more in the death of the righteous. As it would be a much misplaced loyalty that should lead a subject to force himself upon a royal circle on a state occasion without a royal command; so it would be a very blind loyalty to the King of Heaven, to attempt the approaches of His court by deputy of the