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faith; nor to those who wisely consider it, can anything equal the importance of the testimony thus borne to the truth of the great faith of Christendom. We can understand, that the English press should doubtfully, as if suspecting a political deception, mention the alleged" death of a Roman Catholic Bishop, by the hand of the natives, as the cause assigned for the French expedition against China. They speak in character when, after an extorted admission, an off-hand allusion is made to a "handful of Roman Catholic Missionaries," dispersed in the country, and " generally living in safety and comfort in the houses of their more wealthy neophytes. But as a counterbalance to all this, where are the joy, the triumph, the adoring sympathy of Catholics? Most of these martyrdoms have been recorded in the " Annals of the Faith ;" but the narratives are somewhat scattered; the accounts of the different missions, with their alternations of storm and sunshine, are broken up by long intervals of time; their geography is a trouble-so many barbarous names of insignificant unfindable places; conscience is lulled by the money, more or less, that has been given to the cause, that of religion in general; and the little blue periodical is thrown aside unmarked, amongst the pamphlets, newspapers, and other literary trash with which our tables in the present day, are covered. But is it thus we should receive tidings of these accessions to the army of martyrs? of these new triumphs over hell, at which the angelic hosts are thrilling with triumph? It is not; and it is the Sovereign Pontiff himself, who recalls us from our carking" cares and petty warfare, and bids us contemplate what the Church is doing elsewhere. For it is he who commanded the collection of those acts of these martyrs, which the Fathers of the Oratory have translated from the original Italian, at the request of the Cardinal Archbishop. With the book itself, we are somewhat disappointed; it is merely a martyrology;-we could have wished for a more extensive history of the Church in the East, not of its past trials, but of its present condition. The arms and the policy of Europe, must soon open a way into these countries. Mr. Oliphant, in his most agreeable narrative of Lord Elgin's expedition to China, informs us that "The opening of the country by the new treaty, and the protection which it guarantees to Christian missionaries, will doubtless inaugurate a new era in

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evangelical enterprise." (vol. i. p. 258.) But before the land is flooded by tracts, before we are perhaps called on to endure a fresh persecution from Scripture readers, and other well paid functionaries of wealthy societies, we trust that there may be a full record, in an accessible form, of those evangelical enterprises which the authorized church has already performed ivithout this, or any other, human assistance. Let us return to the martyrology before us, and say, in the words of Cardinal Wiseman, in his preface:

"No one can read these pages without being struck by the wonderful unity and identity of the acts and sufferings of the Church in all its ages. It is everfilling up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ.' Et qui pro nobis mortem semel vicit, semper vincit in nobis.' And as the martyr adds, quod in illa crudelitate carnificum plus pro quo patitur Christus ipse patiatur.' The martyrdom of the Church is the evolving of the Passion of its Lord, accomplishing itself in His members.

"In these most touching narratives, therefore, we could believe ourselves to be reading from the Acta Sincera Martyrum' of Ruinart. The same persons appear in the conflict. Bishops, priests, deacons, catechists, acolytes, virgins, old men, and mere children. There are almost the same instruments of torture and death, the rod, the rack, the gibbet, and the sword. If there be any difference, it is that the refined and exquisite tortures of the board, the rubbing stick, and the sawing rope, were not known to the ruder cruelty of the amphitheatre, where the Africans made a speedy way to the crown of martyrdom. There are, moreover, the very same names so dear to the Church, Agatha and Agnes, Barbara and Perpetua, Lucy and Julitta, Peter and Paul, Ignatius and Stephen, Protasius and Sebastian. There are the same interrogatories and the same answers; the same holy defiance and divinely inspired contempt of pain, torture, and death; there is the same wonderful illumination of the knowledge of God in the mouths of the simple, and of children; the same intense detestation of paganism; the same burning and tender love for Jesus and Mary, the same consuming zeal for the glory of God and of His Church. We could believe ourselves to be reading of the martyrdoms of Spain, Bithynia, and Sicily."-Pref. pp. vi., vii., viii.

We can add nothing to this eloquent passage, but we can amplify it, by giving some few examples of the wonderful power of the grace of God in martyrdom; let us take the case of a poor pagan woman, Agatha Kim: she was converted young to Christianity, but was of such feeble intellect that they could never succeed in teaching her the necessary truths; for many years they could not on this account even

baptize her. Only she remembered, and constantly repeated the words, "Jesus and Mary;" but upon the repetition of these saving names, her soul fed, and her courage grew. In her ignorance she was following her husband's superstitious practices before his idols, when her sister saw and reproved her; she was told that it was wrong to do so, and without fear or hesitation she flung the gods of her husband into the fire. This poor creature God enabled to endure the most dreadful sufferings for His sake.

"She was arrested in 1836, and brought before the court of Potseng. The judge said to her: You are weak enough to believe that the teaching of the Christians is true.' Agatha answered: I am a poor wretched creature, and I only know Jesus and Mary: I have learnt nothing more.' Your bones shall be broken, and you shall be beaten until you expire, if you will not renounce Jesus and Mary.' Were it necessary to die, I will never renounce Jesus and Mary.' During the interrogatories and tortures which she underwent, the only words which she uttered were the names of our Saviour and His holy Mother. Her faith, although but little enlightened, remained unshaken, and her courage excited universal admiration. The judge was unable to overcome her determination, and sent her to the Kientsò. When she entered the prison, the Christians said laughingly to her: Ah, here is Agatha, who knows Jesus and Mary, and nothing else.' They praised her intrepidity, instructed her in the necessary truths, and baptised her. she had gained new strength in the sacrament of regeneration, she underwent the three interrogatories in the court of Kientsò with equal fortitude, making the same answers as have been given above. The judge condemned her to be beheaded, but this sentence was not carried out until the twenty-fourth of May, 1839. She went to execution in company with eight other martyrs, with the same firmness that she had displayed before her judges. She was fiftyfour years of age."-pp. 36-7.

After

Children have been inspired, as in old times, to fight the good fight, becoming awful in their innocence and strength. Peter Liou was but thirteen, yet his sufferings were of surpassing horror,-he was tortured eight times.

"He received 600 blows of the rod. Fourteen times he was brutally treated by the executioners. He received forty blows of the board. During his torture he displayed so great a firmness, and so tranquil an air, that the very executioners stood in amazement. He took the shreds of his flesh and skin and threw them before the judges. In the prison there was an apostate, to whom he said: You are a catechist, and a grown man. I am only a boy. It is you who ought to be exhorting me to suffer courageously. How

comes it that we have changed places? Return to yourself, and die for Jesus Christ.' He was strangled in prison at the age of thirteen, and ascended to join the glorious army of children, of whom St. Vitus and St Celsus are the standard bearers, and to walk side by side with St. Christopher."-Pref. pp. xi., xii.

Another instance we must give.

"Barbara Y, belonging to the same family, was left an orphan in her infancy. She had to endure the privations of poverty, and was distinguished for her virtue among the children of her age. She was arrested in the month of March, and taken to the Potseng, where she endured all the tortures with great firmness. The judge, unable to make her apostatise, transferred her to the Kientsò. The judge of this latter court several times endeavoured to gain her over by kind means, but could not influence her. He was astonished at such constancy in a girl of fourteen, and pitying her extreme youth, sent her back to Potseng, where she underwent fresh torments, hunger, cold, stripes, and sickness. At length she was strangled in prison."-p. 48.

Aged men and women, whom even the executioners would have spared, exclaimed that they had yet strength to suffer for God, and bore unshrinking the most horrible

torments.

"It were unworthy of me, at my age,' said Agatha Tsong, to abandon my true religion; I am on the point of appearing before the Judge of the living and the dead; there is hardly a breath in my body now: make haste to deprive me of it, before death prevents you.' She was carried to the prison of the Kientsò, where she expired of the pangs of hunger, pronouncing the sweet names of Jesus and Mary. She was aged seventy-nine."-p. 101.

Nor must it be supposed that these men were sanctified only by suffering. Wherever the details of their lives are known, the heroism of their charity and faith seems greater even than that of their martyrdom. In every instance the first questions were addressed to the discovery of Christians who had sheltered them, or of the holy things of the Church; always in vain; "Denounce those companions of your disobedience, with whom you are acquainted." "I am not permitted to injure my neighbour," replied John Pak. "I am acquainted with few Christians," said Barbara Tshoi, and besides, you would put them to death; I cannot denounce them. So it was universally. Amongst the body of those Christians, whom God did not call to the honour of martyr

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dom, the spirit of confessors is gloriously manifested. These poor timid Chinese, brought up in the slavish habits of an Eastern despotism, and witnessing horrors from which the bravest might have shrunk, were scarcely ever at fault. They were ready to seek out the martyrs in prison, to console and sustain them, to conceal the priests, to do the errands of the bishops to all parts of the kingdom, to raise money for the ransom of captives, or of the ransacked treasures of the Church; compelled to fly before the outbreak of persecution, raised by some new edict, or the captive of some mercenary and savage mandarin, they would return to find, alas! their villages laid waste, their churches burnt, their friends sent into exile or slain, worst of all, their pastors gone; and yet, in almost all cases they had Christian fortitude to collect again their scattered means, and to resume the practices of the faith as best they might. Poor labouring men and women have been catechists, apostles in their families, teaching, baptising the children, encouraging the martyrs, following them to execution, and then, with the marvellous Christian instinct, only to be found in the Catholic Church, running all risks to save their precious remains, dipping handkerchiefs in the blood, and thus showing their veneration for the relics of the saints. The relics of the holy priest Bonnard were thus recovered; we will quote from the account given of his martyrdom, by Mgr. Retord, his bishop.

"But what did they do with the body? We expected that it would be buried at the place of execution, as that of M. Schoeffler was, and that only the head would be thrown into the river. We made preparations for obtaining possession of the relics, but our measures were of no avail. As soon as the victim fell, the mandarins had all the earth which was soaked with his blood dug up, that the Christians might not get any of it, and the body and head were put into a large boat, with a strong detachment of soldiers. The chief mandarin, with several of his armed followers, went on board another boat. They were both provisioned for three days, and when they had set sail, aud got the oars out, they went down the river, as if on a long and important expedition.

"But a launch, full of Christians, among whom were my deacon, and two of our catechists, went before them at a little distance, to watch their movements, and towards evening we despatched in the direction of the sea several fishing boats, which were moored in the neighbourhood of our community. At a little before nine the sky was overcast with clouds, and it began to rain. The boats of the