me if his teaching is good."

The Arians at last lost patience. "He calls us heretics!" they
exclaimed indignantly.

"That is his duty and the duty of all those who guard the flock of
Christ" was the only reply they got.

The Emperor received Athanasius with the deepest respect and listened
eagerly to all he had to say on the subject of the true Faith.

After a short stay in Antioch, the Patriarch returned to Alexandria,
where he related to the people the success of his enterprise and spoke
much in praise of the new Emperor. Their joy was not destined to be
lasting. Jovian had been but a few months on the throne when he died
suddenly on his way from Antioch to Constantinople. He was succeeded
by Valentinian, who, unfortunately for the peace of the Church, chose
his brother Valens to help him in the government, taking the West for
his own share of the Empire and leaving the East to his brother.

Valens, who was both weak and cruel, had an Arian wife and declared at
once in favor of the Arians. The East was once more to be the scene of
strife and persecution. The Emperor, who had not yet been baptized,
received the Sacrament at the hands of Eudoxius, the Arian Bishop of
Constantinople, a worthy successor of Eusebius, who, in the middle of
the ceremony, made Valens take an oath that he would remain faithful
to the Arians and pursue the Catholics with every rigor.

The Emperor thus won over, the Arians began to persecute and slander
those who were faithful to the Church; several were even put to death.
The Catholics, in desperation, resolved at last to send an embassy to
Valens to ask for justice, eighty priests and clerics being chosen to
make the petition.

The Emperor, who pretended to listen patiently to their complaints,
had given secret orders to Modestus, the Prefect of the Pretorian
Guard, to put them all to death. Modestus was as cruel as his master;
but even in Nicomedia, where Arius and Eusebius had been so active in
preaching heresy, the bulk of the people remained true to the Faith of
Nicea. Such a wholesale slaughter of innocent ecclesiastics would be
almost certain to cause a rising; the thing must be done secretly.

Summoning the doomed men to appear before him, Modestus informed them
that the Emperor had sentenced them to banishment. Glad to suffer
something for the Faith, they received the news with joy and were
promptly embarked on a ship which was supposedly to carry them to the
country of their