t I might not survive the destruction, which might ensue, of
such a place, nay, of Italy itself. I shrank from the odium of
having occasioned slaughter, and would sooner have given my own
throat to the knife.... I was ordered to calm the people. I
replied, that all I could do was not to inflame them; but God alone
could appease them. For myself, if I appeared to have instigated
them, it was the duty of the government to proceed against me, or
to banish me. Upon this they left me."

Ambrose spent the rest of Palm Sunday in the same Basilica in which he
had been officiating in the morning: at night he went to his own house,
that the civil power might have the opportunity of arresting him, if it
was thought advisable.

4.

The attempt to gain the Portian seems now to have been dropped; but on
the Wednesday troops were marched before day-break to take possession
of the New Church, which was within the walls. Ambrose, upon the news of
this fresh movement, used the weapons of an apostle. He did not seek to
disturb them in their possession; but, attending service at his own
church, he was content with threatening the soldiers with a sentence of
excommunication. Meanwhile the New Church, where the soldiers were
posted, began to fill with a larger congregation than it ever contained
before the persecution. Ambrose was requested to go thither, but,
desirous of drawing the people away from the scene of imperial tyranny,
lest a riot should ensue, he remained where he was, and began a comment
on the lesson of the day, which was from the book of Job. First, he
commended them for the Christian patience and resignation with which
they had hitherto borne their trial, which indeed was, on the whole,
surprising, if we consider the inflammable nature of a multitude. "We
petition your Majesty," they said to the Emperor; "we use no force, we
feel no fear, but we petition." It is common in the leader of a
multitude to profess peaceableness, but very unusual for the multitude
itself to persevere in doing so. Ambrose went on to observe, that both
they and he had in their way been tempted, as Job was, by the powers of
evil. For himself, his peculiar trial had lain in the reflection that
the extraordinary measures of the government, the movements of the
Gothic guards, the fines of the tradesmen, the various sufferings of the
faithful, all arose from, as it might be called, his obstinacy in not
yielding to w