o one guarded me. I
was at the mercy of all the world; you should have secured my
departure to a place of your own choosing. Now the priests say to
me, 'There is little difference between voluntarily leaving and
betraying the altar of Christ; for when you leave, you betray it.'

"May it please your Majesty graciously to accept this my declining
to appear in the Imperial Court. I am not practised in attending
it, except in your behalf; nor have I the skill to strive for
victory within the palace, as neither knowing, nor caring to know,
its secrets."--_Ep._ 21.

The reader will observe an allusion in the last sentence of this defence
to a service Ambrose had rendered the Emperor and his mother, upon the
murder of Gratian; when, at the request of Justina, he undertook the
difficult embassy to the usurper Maximus, and was the means of
preserving the peace of Italy. This Maximus now interfered to defend him
against the parties whom he had on a former occasion defended against
Maximus; but other and more remarkable occurrences interposed in his
behalf, which shall be mentioned in the next section.

FOOTNOTES:

[364] Vid. 2 [4] Kings vi. 32.

[365] The Arian bishop, who had lately come from the East to Milan, had
taken the name of Auxentius, the heretical predecessor of Ambrose.

Sec. 3. _Ambrose and the Martyrs._

1.

A termination was at length put to the persecution of the Church of
Milan by an occurrence of a very different nature from any which take
place in these days. And since such events as I am to mention do not
occur now, we are apt to argue, not very logically, that they did not
occur then. I conceive this to be the main objection which will be felt
against the following narrative. Miracles never took place then, because
we do not see reason to believe that they take place now. But it should
be recollected, that if there are no miracles at present, neither are
there at present any martyrs. Might we not as cogently argue that no
martyrdoms took place then, because no martyrdoms take place now? And
might not St. Ambrose and his brethren have as reasonably disbelieved
the possible existence of parsonages and pony carriages in the
nineteenth century, as we the existence of martyrs and miracles in the
primitive age? Perhaps miracles and martyrs go together. Now the account
which is to follow does indeed relate to miracles, but then it relates
to martyrs also