ps took the same view of the case with Ambrose; and,
accordingly, he determined to stay in Milan till removed by main force,
or cut off by violence.

2.

The reader shall hear his own words in a sermon which he delivered upon
the occasion:--

"I see that you are under a sudden and unusual excitement," he
said, "and are turning your eyes on me. What can be the reason of
this? Is it that you saw or heard that an imperial message had been
brought to me by the tribunes desiring me to depart hence whither I
would, and to take with me all who would follow me? What! did you
fear that I would desert the Church, and, for fear of my life,
abandon you? Yet you might have attended to my answer. I said that
I could not, for an instant, entertain the thought of deserting the
Church, in that I feared the Lord of all more than the Emperor of
the day: in truth that, should force hurry me off, it would be my
body, not my mind, that was got rid of; that, should he act in the
way of kingly power, I was prepared to suffer after the manner of a
priest.

"Why, then, are you thus disturbed? I will never leave you of my
own will; but if compelled, I may not resist. I shall still have
the power of sorrowing, of weeping, of uttering laments: when
weapons, soldiers, Goths, too, assail me, tears are my weapons, for
such are the defences of a priest. In any other way I neither ought
to resist, nor can; but as to retiring and deserting the Church,
this is not like me; and for this reason, lest I seem to do so from
dread of some heavier punishment. Ye yourselves know that it is my
wont to submit to our rulers, but not to make concessions to them;
to present myself readily to legal punishment, and not to fear what
is in preparation.

"A proposal was made to me to deliver up at once the Church plate.
I made answer, that I was ready to give anything that was my own,
farm or house, gold or silver; but that I could withdraw no
property from God's temple, nor surrender what was put into my
hands, not to surrender, but to keep safely. Besides, that I had a
care for the Emperor's well-being; since it was as little safe for
him to receive as for me to surrender: let him bear with the words
of a free-spoken priest, for his own good, and shrink from doing
wrong to his Lord.

"You recol