leanse us from sin, and make us members of his
spiritual kingdom, and heirs of his glory, he saw nothing in us which
could determine him to such a predilection. We were infected with sin,
and could have no title to the least favor, when God said to us, _I have
loved Jacob_: when he distinguished us from so many millions who perish
in the blindness of infidelity and sin, drew us out of the mass of
perdition, and bestowed on us the grace of his adoption, and all the
high privileges that are annexed to this dignity. In what transports of
love and gratitude ought we not, without intermission, to adore his
infinite goodness to us, and beg that we may be always strengthened by
his grace to advance continually in humility and his holy love, lest, by
slackening our pace in his service, we fall from this state of
happiness, forfeit this sublime grace, and perish with Judas. Happy
would the church be, if all converts were careful to maintain themselves
in the same fervor in which they returned to God. But by a neglect to
watch over themselves, and to shun dangers, and by falling into sloth,
they often relapse into a condition much worse than the former.

Footnotes:
1. Strom. l. 4, p. 488.
2. L. 1, c. {1}.
3. In Catal.
4. C. i. 21.
5. Jo. x. 1.
6. Rom. xi. 12.
7. Matt. viii. 11.
8. Strom. l. 3, p. 436.

SS. MONTANUS, LUCIUS, FLAVIAN, JULIAN, VICTORICUS,

PRIMOLUS, RHENUS, AND DONATIAN, MARTYRS AT CARTHAGE.

From their original acts written, the first part by the martyrs
themselves, the rest by an eye-witness. They are published more
correctly by Ruinart than by Surius and Bollandus. See Tillemont, t. 4,
p. 206.

A.D. 259.

THE persecution, raised by Valerian, had raged two years, during which
many had received the crown of martyrdom, and, among others, St.
Cyprian, in September, 258. The proconsul Galerius Maximus, who had
pronounced sentence on that saint, dying himself soon after, the
procurator, Solon, continued the persecution, waiting for the arrival of
a new proconsul from Rome. After some days, a sedition was raised in
Carthage against him, in which many were killed. The tyrannical man,
instead of making search after the guilty, vented his fury upon the
Christians, knowing this would be agreeable to the idolaters.
Accordingly he caused these eight Christians, all disciples of St.
Cyprian, and most of them of the clergy, to be apprehended. As soon as
we were taken, say the authors of the acts, we were gi