St. Vincent.

fast clown . As he lay there lie was scourged , and AAdiilst one part of his body Avas tortured by the fire below and by the hot bars and spikes , the parts not exposed to the fire were burned by the application of red hot plates of iron , Dacian surveying all with fiendish satisfaction . The open wounds of

the sufferer were rubbed with salt ; and the torture by fire is said to have been carried to . such an extreme that the melted fat dropping from the flesh increased , the flame . But the more that Vincent suffered , the greater seemed to be his inward consolation

and joy . He lay unmoved , his eyes turned toward heaven , Ms mind calm , and addressed himself to God in continual prayer . Dacian was continually enquiring what he did and said , and when told that he suffered ivith joy in his countenance , Avas

filled Avith unbounded rage and confusion . At last he commanded the martyr to be thrown into a dungeon naked , and upon a floor of broken potsherds , the sharp edges of which added to Ms pain . His legs were fixed . in wooden stocks , stretched very wide , and orders were given that he should be left without food , and that no one should be admitted to see or speak to him .

But like Paul and Silas m the prison at PMlippi , he sang the praises of God . It is even related by some who have written of these things , that he was miraculously set free from the stocks , and that the dungeon was filled with light , which the jailor observing , looked in through a chink and

saw the saints walking about and singing hymns , a sight whieh so moved Mm , that he was immediately converted to the Christian faith , and was afterwards baptized . Dacian on hearing of what had taken place , chafed with rage , and even wept from

disappointment ; yet he ordered , that there should for a time be , a relaxation of severity , Christians who desired to visit the prisoner Were even permitted to do so , and many came and kissed his wounds , and dipped clothes . in his blood " which they kept as

, an assured protection to themselves and their posterity . " The Proconsul , perhaps intending to try what leniency could accomplish , after cruelty had failed , caused a soft bed to be prepared for the martyr , upon which ho had no sooner lain down than

he expired . But wonders did not cease on his death . Dacian commanded Ms body to be thrown into a marshy field ; and wo are told that a crow defended it from wild

beasts and birds of prey . Some authors add , that it was then tied in a sack with a great stone , and cast into the sea , but was miraculously carried ashore and revealed to two CMistians , who laid it in a little chapel outside of the walls of Valentia ,

where many miracles attested the claim of Vincent to be reckoned among the sahits . The gridiron on ivhich he ii r as roasted , and the other instruments with which he ivas tortured were likewise , it is said , preserved with venerationalthough how the

Chris-, tians got possession of them does not appear , nor do we know whether or not any church or monastery in Spain or elsewhere now boasts of these relics as amongst its sacred treasures . When the French

lung , CMlcleut , was carryhig on a siege of Saragossa , he wondered to see the inhabitants continually making processions , and , being informed that they carried the stole of St . Vincent about the walls with prayer , and had been miraculously protected by the martyr saints' intercessionhe raised

, the siege on condition that this precious relic should be given to him , which he carried with great solemnity to Paris , and placed it in the magnificent church and abbey of St . Vincent , built by Mm in the year 559 . In the year 855 , the bones of

the saint were discovered at Valentia , and conveyed to France , where they were placed in the Abbey of Castres in Languedoc , and there some of them are said still to remain , although some were given to the Abbey of St . Germain des Pres , at Paris , and to various churches , and some were burned at

Castres by the Hugenots in the end of the sixteenth century . The translation of the saints' hones from Valentia to Castres , is said to have been attended with many miracles , and great miracles are said to have been wrought by a portion of them in a church near Poictiers . There ishowever ,

, another account given by some Roman Catholic writers , of what became of the body of St . Vincent , which it is not easy , at least for a Protestant , to reconcile with this . To escape the cruel persecution of the Saracen King Abderaiuene , at

Valentia , many Christians lied , and carried with them the body of St . Vincent , taking refuge in the South-west of Portugal , where the name of Cape St . Vincent—off which Nelson gained one of his great victories—still commemorates the fact . And Alphonsus Henry , the first King of Portu-