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se affronts by your death." PETER. "I had no intention to affront you. I only expressed what is written in the divine law." SEVERUS. "Have compassion on yourself, and sacrifice." PETER. "If I am truly compassionate to myself, I ought not to sacrifice." SEVERUS. "My desire is to use lenity; I therefore still do allow you time to consider with yourself, that you may save your life." PETER. "This delay will be to no purpose, for I shall not alter my mind; do now what you will be obliged to do soon, and complete the work, which the devil, your father, has begun; for I will never do what Jesus Christ forbids me." Severus, on hearing these words, ordered him to be hoisted on the rack, and while he was suspended in the air, said to him scoffing: "What say you now, Peter; do you begin to know what the rack is? Are you yet willing to sacrifice?" Peter answered: "Tear me with iron hooks, and talk not of my sacrificing to your devils: I have already told you, that I will sacrifice to that God alone for whom I suffer." Hereupon the governor {081} commanded his tortures to be redoubled. The martyr, far from fetching the least sigh, sung with alacrity those verses of the royal prophet: _One thing I have asked of the Lord; this will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life_.[1] _I will take the chalice of salvation, and will call upon the name of the Lord_.[2] The governor called forth fresh executioners to relieve the first, now fatigued. The spectators, seeing the martyr's blood run down in streams, cried out to him: "Obey the emperors: sacrifice, and rescue yourself from these torments." Peter replied: "Do you call these torments? I, for my part, feel no pain: but this I know, that if I am not faithful to my God, I must expect real pains, such as cannot be conceived." The judge also said: "Sacrifice, Peter Balsam, or you will repent it." PETER. "Neither will I sacrifice, nor shall I repent it." SEVERUS. "I am just ready to pronounce sentence." PETER. "It is what I most earnestly desire." Severus then dictated the sentence in this manner: "It is our order, that Peter Balsam, for having refused to obey the edict of the invincible emperors, and having contemned our commands, after obstinately defending the law of a man crucified, be himself nailed to a cross." Thus it was that this glorious martyr finished his triumph, at Aulane, on the 3d of January, which day he is honored in the Roman Martyro
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