ardly possible that
Christianity should ever be established in China. Vows of virginity, the
assembling of women in the churches, their necessary intercourse with
the ministers of religion, their participation of the sacraments,
auricular confession, the marrying but one wife; all this oversets the
manners and customs, and strikes at the religion and laws of the
country." Could he forget that the gospel overcame {368} all these
impediments where it was first established, in spite of the most
inveterate prejudices, and of all worldly opposition from the great and
the learned; whereas philosophy, though patronized by princes, could
never in any age introduce its rules even into one city. In vain did the
philosopher Plotinus solicit the emperor Gallienus to rebuild a ruined
city in Campania, that he and his disciples might establish in it the
republic of Plato: a system, in some points, flattering the passions of
men, almost as Mahometism fell in with the prejudices and passions of
the nations where it prevailed. So visibly is the church the work of
God.

Footnotes:
1. L. de Laud. Virgin. c. 25.
2. L. 8, c. 14.
3. L. 1, c. 17.
4. Apol. 2, ol. 1.
5. L'Esprit des Loix, b. xix. 18.

ST. VEDAST, BISHOP OF ARRAS, C.

From a very short life of his, written soon after his death, and another
longer, corrected by Alcuin, both published by Henschenius, with
remarks, p. 782, t. 1. Febr. See Alcuin's Letter ad Monachos Vedastinos,
in Martenne, Ampl. Collectio, t. l, p. 50. Gallia Christ. Nova, t. 3, p.
3.

A.D. 539.

ST. VEDAST left his own country very young, (which seems to have been in
the west of France,) and led a holy life concealed from the world in the
diocese of Toul, where the bishop, charmed with his virtue, promoted him
to the priesthood. Clovis I., king of France, returning from his victory
over the Alemanni, hastening to Rheims to receive baptism, desired at
Toul some priest who might instruct and prepare him for that holy
sacrament on the road. Vedast was presented to his majesty for this
purpose. While he accompanied the king at the passage of the river
Aisne, a blind man begging on the bridge besought the servant of God to
restore him to his sight: the saint, divinely inspired, prayed, and made
the sign of the cross on his eyes, and he immediately recovered it. The
miracle confirmed the king in the faith, and moved several of his
courtiers to embrace it. St. Vedast assisted St. Remigius in converting
t