er as thou didst thy servant
Peter; the people have already seen the proof of thy power in me; grant
me now to lay down my life for thy sake, O my God." On pronouncing the
last words he immediately sank, and died, June 4, A. D. 308; his body
was afterwards taken up, and buried by some pious christians.

Pamphilus, a native of Phoenicia, of a considerable family, was a man
of such extensive learning, that he was called a second Origen. He was
received into the body of the clergy at Caesarea, where he established a
public library and spent his time in the practice of every christian
virtue. He copied the greatest part of the works of Origen with his own
hand, and, assisted by Eusebius, gave a correct copy of the Old
Testament, which had suffered greatly by the ignorance or negligence of
firmer transcribers. In the year 307, he was apprehended, and suffered
torture and martyrdom.

Marcellus, bishop of Rome, being banished on account of his faith, fell
a martyr to the miseries he suffered in exile, 16th Jan. A. D. 310.

Peter, the sixteenth bishop of Alexandria, was martyred Nov. 25, A. D.
311, by order of Maximus Caesar, who reigned in the east.

Agnes, a virgin of only thirteen years of age, was beheaded for being a
christian; as was Serene, the empress of Diocletian. Valentine, a
priest, suffered the same fate at Rome; and Erasmus, a bishop, was
martyred in Campania.

Soon after this the persecution abated in the middle parts of the
empire, as well as in the west; and Providence at length began to
manifest vengeance on the persecutors. Maximian endeavoured to corrupt
his daughter Fausta to murder Constantine her husband; which she
discovered, and Constantine forced him to choose his own death, when he
preferred the ignominious death of hanging, after being an emperor near
twenty years.

Galerius was visited by an incurable and intolerable disease, which
began with an ulcer in his secret parts and a fistula in ano, that
spread progressively to his inmost bowels, and baffled all the skill of
physicians and surgeons. Untried medicines of some daring professors
drove the evil through his bones to the very marrow, and worms began to
breed in his entrails; and the stench was so preponderant as to be
perceived in the city; all the passages separating the passages of the
urine, and excrements being corroded and destroyed. The whole mass of
his body was turned unto universal rottenness; and, though living
creatures, and bo