. Andrews, trained up this holy man from his
childhood, and when he had ordained him priest, and long employed him in
the service of his own church, sent him to preach the gospel in the isle
of May, lying to the bay of Forth. The saint exterminated superstition
and many other crimes and abuses, and having settled the churches of
that island in good order, passed into the county of Fife, and was there
martyred; being slain with above 6000 other Christians, by an army of
infidels who ravaged that country in 874. His relics were held in great
veneration at Innerny, in Fifeshire, the place of his martyrdom, and
were famous for miracles. King David II. having himself experienced the
effect of his powerful intercession with God, rebuilt his church at
Innerny of stone, to a stately manner, and founded a college of canons
to serve it. See King's calendar, and the manuscript life of this martyr
in the Scottish college at Paris and the Breviary of Aberdeen.

{496}

MARCH II.

MARTYRS UNDER THE LOMBARDS.

From St. Gregory, Dial. l. 3, c. 26, 27. t. 2, p. 337.

SIXTH AGE.

THE Lombards, a barbarous idolatrous nation which swarmed out of
Scandinavia and Pomerania, settled first in the counties now called
Austria and Bavaria; and a few years after, about the middle of the
sixth century, broke into the north of Italy. In their ravages about the
year 597, they attempted to compel forty husbandmen, whom they had made
captives, to eat meats which had been offered to idols. The faithful
servants of Christ constantly refusing to comply, were all massacred.
Such meats might, in some circumstances, have been eaten without sin,
but not when this was exacted out of a motive of superstition. The same
barbarians endeavored to oblige another company of captives to adore the
head of a goat, which was their favorite idol, and about which they
walked, singing, and bending their knees before it; but the Christians
chose rather to die than purchase their lives by offending God. They are
said to have been about four hundred in number. St. Gregory the Great
mentions, that these poor countrymen had prepared themselves for the
glorious crown of martyrdom, by lives employed in the exercises of
devotion and voluntary penance, and by patience in bearing afflictions;
also, that they had the heroic courage to suffer joyfully the most cruel
torments and death, rather than offend God by sin, because his love
reigned in their hearts. "True love," says St