st the impious
virgin who refused to burn incense on her altars. Their violence,
however, was commonly disappointed, and the seasonable interposition of
some miraculous power preserved the chaste spouses of Christ from the
dishonor of even an involuntary defeat. We should not indeed neglect to
remark that the more ancient as well as authentic memorials of the
Church are seldom polluted with these extravagant and indecent
fictions."

There is no doubt that the monks of later times did waste their leisure
in fabricating such miraculous interposition; but there surely is a
flippancy in the tone of what is above quoted, as indeed in Gibbon's
whole treatment of the persecution of the early Christians, which is not
worthy of the great historian.

[Illustration 3: _CHRISTIANS IN THE ARENA After the painting by
L. P. de Laubadere.

Were these poor women, as they awaited in prison their doom,
comforted and encouraged by the presence of the Apostle charged
to "feed my lambs"? We do not know. But the firmness and
constancy with which they endured trials so horrible even unto
death bespeak the marvellous effect of the early enthusiasm of
the Christian faith. These women were in the vanguard of the
Christian army which first met the deadly force of heathen
opposition; and because they did not flinch, but bore the pains
of martyrdom for their faith, that faith ultimately triumphed
and filled the world with its light. For more than two hundred
years, however, the women who embraced this faith were to live
in the daily dread of the terrible cry: "The Christians to the
lions."_]

Eusebius informs us that "the women were no less manly than the men in
behalf of the teaching of the Divine Word, as they endured conflicts
with the men, and bore away equal prizes of virtue. And when they were
dragged away for corrupt purposes, they surrendered their lives to death
rather than their bodies to impurity." He instances the case of a woman
and her two daughters, whom Chrysostom, in an oration in their honor,
names as Domnina, Bernice, and Prosdose. These women, being as beautiful
in their persons as they were virtuous in their minds, were threatened
during the Diocletian persecution with violation. While the guard was
taking them back to the place from which they had fled to avoid this
danger, they took advantage of a moment in which they were not watched
to throw themselves into the river, where they found safe