ries, and regarded
insults as his greatest gain. He lived in extreme poverty, and a
privation of all the conveniences of life. His barns, with all the corn
in them, the whole subsistence of his family, were burned down by wicked
men. He received the news with cheerfulness, grieving only for their sin
by which God was offended. In his agony angels were seen surrounding him
to conduct his happy soul to bliss. He lived in the sixth age. He is
named in the Roman Martyrology. See St. Gregory, hom. 35, in Evang. t.
1, p. 1616, and l. 4, Dial. c. 19.

B. ROGER, ABBOT, C.

HAVING embraced the Cistercian order at Loroy, or Locus Regis, in Berry,
he was chosen abbot of Elan near Retel in Champagne, and died about the
year 1175. His remains are enshrined in a chapel which bears his name,
in the church at Elan, where his festival is kept with a mass in his
honor on the 13th of February. His life was written by a monk of Elan.
See Chatelain, on the 4th of January, on which day his name occurs in a
Cistercian calendar printed at Dijon.

FEBRUARY XIV.

ST. VALENTINE, PRIEST AND MARTYR.

His acts are commended by Henschenius, but objected to by Tillemont, &c.
Here is given only an abridgment of the principal circumstances, from
Tillem. l. 4, p. 678.

THIRD AGE.

VALENTINE was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his
family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He
was {414} apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome;
who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith
ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards to be
beheaded, which was executed on the 14th of February, about the year
270. Pope Julius I. is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole to
his memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate, now called
Ports del Popolo, formerly Porta Valentini. The greatest part of his
relics are now in the church of St. Praxedes. His name is celebrated as
that of an illustrious martyr, in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, the
Roman missal of Thomasius, in the calendar of F. Fronto, and that of
Allatius, in Bede, Usuard, Ado, Notker, and all other martyrologies on
this day. To abolish the heathen's lewd superstitious custom of boys
drawing the names of girls, in honor of their goddess Februata Juno, on
the 15th of this month, several zealous pastors substituted the names of
saints in billets given on this day. See January 29, on St. Francis