at your being retained here, but be not
discouraged. I am with you: carry these tidings to your companions, and
let them know that they shall have a more glorious crown.' I asked him
where heaven was; the infant replied, 'Out of the world.' 'Show it me,'
says Victor. The infant answered, 'Where then would be your faith?'
Victor said, 'I cannot retain what you command me: tell me a sign that I
may give them.' He answered, 'Give them the sign of Jacob, that is, his
mystical ladder, reaching to the heavens.'" Soon after this vision,
Victor was put to death. This vision filled us with joy.

God gave us, the night following, another assurance of his mercy by a
vision to our sister Quartillosia, a fellow-prisoner, whose husband and
son had suffered death for Christ three days before, and who followed
them by martyrdom a few days after. "I saw," says she, "my son, who
suffered; he was in the prison sitting on a vessel of water, and said to
me: 'God has seen your sufferings.' Then entered a young man of a
wonderful stature, and he said: 'Be of good courage, God hath remembered
you.'" The martyrs had received no nourishment the preceding day, nor
had they any on the day that followed this vision; but at length Lucian,
then priest, and afterwards bishop of Carthage, surmounting all
obstacles, got food to be carried to them in abundance by the subdeacon,
Herermian, and by Januarius, a catechumen. The acts say they brought the
never-failing food[2] {457} which Tillemont understands of the blessed
eucharist, and the following words still more clearly determine it in
favor of this sense. They go on: We have all one and the same spirit,
which unites and cements us together in prayer, in mutual conversation,
and in all our actions. These are those amiable bands which put the
devil to flight, are most agreeable to God, and obtain of him, by joint
prayer, whatever they ask. These are the ties which link hearts
together, and which make men the children of God. To be heirs of his
kingdom we must be his children, and to be his children we must love one
another. It is impossible for us to attain to the inheritance of his
heavenly glory, unless we keep that union and peace with all our
brethren which our heavenly Father has established among us.
Nevertheless, this union suffered some prejudice in our troop, but the
breach was soon repaired. It happened that Montanus had some words with
Julian, about a person who was not of our communion, and