. But the grace of God led the conflict
against him, and delivered the weak, and set them as firm pillars, able
through patience to endure all the wrath of the Evil One."

The letter goes on to relate how the heathen servants of many of the
Christians were arrested, and, through fear of suffering the same
dreadful tortures which they saw visited upon the believers, testified
falsely that the Christians were wont to indulge in the most atrocious
practices. This was believed by the common people, with the result that
all pity was extirpated from their breasts, and they hunted the
Christians with a rage which could only be likened to that of wild
beasts.

One of the most renowned of the sufferers on this occasion was the slave
Blandina, "through whom Christ showed that things which appear mean and
obscure and despicable to men are with God of great glory.... For while
we all trembled, and her earthly mistress, who was herself also one of
the witnesses, feared that on account of the weakness of her body she
would be unable to make a bold confession, Blandina was filled with such
power as to be delivered and raised above those who were torturing her
by turns from morning until evening in every manner, so that they
acknowledged that they were conquered, and could do nothing more to her.
And they were astonished at her endurance, as her entire body was
mangled and broken; and they testified that one of these forms of
torture was sufficient to destroy life, not to speak of so many and so
great sufferings. But the blessed woman, like a noble athlete, renewed
her strength in her confession; and her comfort and recreation and
relief from the pain of her sufferings was in exclaiming, 'I am a
Christian, and there is nothing vile done by us.'"

All this torture seems to have taken place in the examination of
Blandina before the tribunal; for we read how, later, she with others
was taken to the amphitheatre to be exposed to the wild beasts, a
spectacle having been arranged in order that the people might be regaled
with the sight of the Christians' sufferings. At this exhibition the
people themselves decided as to what forms of cruelties the victims
should endure, shouting out their demands for the fiery stake or the
beasts, as their horrible fancies dictated.

Blandina was suspended on a cross, and there left to the mercy of any of
the numerous wild beasts prowling around the arena that might choose to
attack her. But on this occa