to visit
them, assuring them they would receive thereby many advantages,
spiritual and corporal, which he proves at length.[12] They are now at
Rome, in the church of St. Clement, pope, whither they were brought
about the time when Antioch fell into the hands of the Saracens in the
reign of Heraclius, in 637.[13] The regular canons at Arouaise near
Bapaume in Artois, the Benedictin monks at Liesse in Haynault, and some
other churches, have obtained each some bone of this glorious
martyr.[14] The Greeks keep his feast a holyday on the day of his death,
the 20th of December. His martyrdom happened in 107.

* * * * *

The perfect spirit of humility, meekness, patience, charity, and all
other Christian virtues, which the seven epistles of St. Ignatius
breathe in every part, cannot fail deeply to affect all who attentively
read them. Critics confess that they find in them a sublimity, an energy
and beauty of thought and expression, which they cannot sufficiently
admire. But the Christian is far more astonished at the saint's perfect
disengagement of heart from the world, the ardor of his love for God,
and the earnestness of his desire of martyrdom. Every period in them is
full of profound sense, which must be attentively meditated on before we
can discover the divine sentiments of all virtues which are here
expressed. Nor can we consider them without being inspired by some
degree of the same, and being covered with confusion to find ourselves
fall so far short of the humility and fervor of the primitive saints.
Let us listen to the instructions which this true disciple of Christ
gives in his letter to the Philadelphians, an abstract of his other six
epistles being given above. He begins it by a strenuous recommendation
of union with their bishop, priests, and deacons; and gives to their
bishop (whom he does not name) great praises, especially for his
humility and meekness, insomuch that he says his silence was more
powerful than the vain discourses of others, and that conversing with an
unchangeable serenity of mind, and in the sweetness of the living God,
he was utterly a stranger to anger. He charges them to refrain from the
pernicious weeds of heresy and schism, which are not planted by the
Father, nor kept by Christ. "Whoever belong to God and Jesus Christ,
these are with the bishop. If any one follows him who maketh a schism,
he obtains not the inheritance of the kingdom of God. He who w