lowed him from
behind with drawn swords, a {209} large band of armed men accompanying
them. On the monks barring the entrance to the Church, the priest of
God, destined soon to become a victim of Christ, running up re-opened
the door to the enemy; "For," said he, "a Church must not be barricaded
like a castle." As they burst in, and some shouted with a voice of
phrenzy, "Where is the traitor?" others, "Where is the Archbishop?" the
fearless confessor of Christ went to meet them. When they pressed on to
murder him, he said, "For myself I cheerfully meet death for the Church
of God; but on the part of God I charge you to do no hurt to any of
mine"--imitating Christ in his passion, when he said, "If ye seek me,
let these go their way." Then rush the ravening wolves on the pious
shepherd, degenerate sons on their own father, cruel lictors on the
victim of Christ, and with fatal swords cut off the consecrated crown of
his head; and hurling down to the ground the Christ [the anointed] of
the Lord, in savage manner, horrible to be said, scattered the brains
with the blood over the pavement.

Thus does the straw press down the grain of corn;
Thus is slain the guard of the vineyard in the vineyard;
Thus the general in the camp, the shepherd in the fold, the
husbandman in the threshing-floor.
Thus the just, slain by the unjust, has changed his house of
clay for a heavenly palace.
Rachel, weeping, now cease thou to mourn
That the flower of the world is bruised by the world.
When the slain Thomas is borne to his funeral,
A new Abel succeeds to the old.
The voice of blood, the voice of his scattered brains,
Fills heaven with a marvellous cry. {210}

_Sixth Lesson._

But the last words of the martyr, which from the confused clamour could
scarcely be distinguished, according to the testimony of those who stood
near, were these,--"To God, and the blessed Mary, and Saint Dionysius,
and the holy patrons of this Church, I commend myself and the cause of
the Church[74]." Moreover, in all the torments which this unvanquished
champion of God endured, he sent forth no cry, he uttered no groan, he
opposed neither his arm nor his garment to the man who struck him, but
held his head, which he had bent towards the swords, unmoved till the
consummation came; prostrated as if for prayer, he fell asleep in the
Lord. The perpetrators of the crime, returning into the palace of the
holy prelate, that they might make th