h to invoke St. Stephen whilst they were preparing to
bury the man who was supposed to be dead. Suddenly they saw him open
his eyes, and move his body; and after a time he sat up, and related
that his soul, having quitted his body, had met a crowd of other souls
of dead persons, some of whom he knew, and others he did not; that a
young man, in a deacon's habit, having entered the room where he was,
put aside all those souls, and said to them three times, "Return what
you have received." He understood at last that he meant the creed,
which he recited instantly; and also the Lord's Prayer; then the
deacon (St. Stephen) made the sign of the cross upon his heart, and
told him to rise in perfect health. A young man,[630] a catechumen,
who had been dead for three days, and was brought back to life by the
prayers of St. Martin, related that after his death he had been
presented before the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge, who had
condemned him, and sent him with a crowd of others into a dark place;
and then two angels, having represented to the Judge that he was a man
for whom St. Martin had interceded, the Judge commanded the angels to
send him back to earth, and restore him to St. Martin, which was done.
He was baptized, and lived a long time afterwards.

St. Salvius, Bishop of Albi,[631] having been seized with a violent
fever, was thought to be dead. They washed him, clothed him, laid him
on a bier, and passed the night in prayer by him: the next morning he
was seen to move; he appeared to awake from a deep sleep, opened his
eyes, and raising his hand towards heaven said, "Ah! Lord, why hast
thou sent me back to this gloomy abode?" He rose completely cured, but
would then reveal nothing.

Some days after, he related how two angels had carried him to heaven,
where he had seen the glory of Paradise, and had been sent back
against his will to live some time longer on earth. St. Gregory of
Tours takes God to witness that he heard this history from the mouth
of St. Salvius himself.

A monk of Augia, named Vetinus, or Guetinus, who was living in 824,
was ill, and lying upon his couch with his eyes shut; but not being
quite asleep, he saw a demon in the shape of a priest, most horribly
deformed, who, showing him some instruments of torture which he held
in his hand, threatened to make him soon feel the rigorous effects of
them. At the same time he saw a multitude of evil spirits enter his
chamber, carrying tools, as if to build