s old. They had been brought up every day before that they
might see the tortures of their brethren. When they were called upon to
swear by the altars of the Gentiles, they remained firm in their faith,
making no account of those pretended gods, and so great was the fury of
the multitude against them that no pity was shown for the age of the
child or the sex of the woman. Tortures were heaped upon them; they were
made to pass through every kind of torment, but the desired end was not
gained.

"Supported by the exhortations of his sister, who was seen and heard by
the Gentiles, Ponticus, after having endured all magnanimously, gave up
the ghost. Blandina, last of all--like a noble mother that hath roused
the courage of her sons for the fight, and sent them forth to conquer
for their king--passed once more through all the tortures they had
suffered, anxious to go and rejoin them, and rejoicing at each step
toward death. At length, after she had undergone fire, the talons of
beasts, and agonizing aspersion, she was wrapped in a network and thrown
to a bull that tossed her in the air; she was already unconscious of
all that befell her, and seemed altogether taken up with watching for
the blessings that Christ had in store for her. Even the Gentiles
allowed that never a woman had suffered so much or so long.

"Still their fury and their cruelty toward the saints were not appeased.
They devised another way of raging against them; they cast to the dogs
the bodies of those who had died of suffocation in prison, and watched
night and day that none of our brethren might come and bury them. As for
what remained of the martyrs' half-mangled or devoured corpses, they
left them exposed under a guard of soldiers, coming to look on them with
insulting eyes, and saying: 'Where is now their God? Of what use to them
was this religion for which they laid down their lives?' We were
overcome with grief that we were not able to bury these poor corpses;
nor the darkness of night, nor gold, nor prayers could help us to
succeed therein. After being thus exposed for six days in the open air,
given over to all manner of outrage, the corpses of the martyrs were at
last burned, reduced to ashes, and cast hither and thither by the
infidels upon the waters of the Rhone, that there might be left no trace
of them on earth. They acted as if they had been more mighty than God,
and could rob our brethren of their resurrection: ''Tis in that hope,'
said th