ar them; and
as they persevered in praying with still greater fervor, they saw him
crowned with glory, as if in perspiration, coming from a great combat,
environed with light.

After the death of St. Ambrose, which happened on Easter Eve, the same
night in which they baptized neophytes, several newly baptized
children saw the holy bishop,[348] and pointed him out to their
parents, who could not see him because their eyes were not
purified--at least says St. Paulinus, a disciple of the saint, and who
wrote his life.

He adds that on the day of his death the saint appeared to several
holy persons dwelling in the East, praying with them and giving them
the imposition of hands; they wrote to Milan, and it was found, on
comparing the dates, that this occurred on the very day he died. These
letters were still preserved in the time of Paulinus, who wrote all
these things. This holy bishop was also seen several times after his
death praying in the Ambrosian church at Milan, which he promised
during his life that he would often visit. During the siege of Milan,
St. Ambrose appeared to a man of that same city, and promised that the
next day succor would arrive, which happened accordingly. A blind man
having learnt in a vision that the bodies of the holy martyrs Sicineus
and Alexander would come by sea to Milan, and that Bishop Ambrose was
going to meet them, he prayed the same bishop to restore him to sight,
in a dream. Ambrose replied; "Go to Milan; come and meet my brethren;
they will arrive on such a day, and they will restore you to sight."
The blind man went to Milan, where he had never been before, touched
the shrine of the holy martyrs, and recovered his eyesight. He himself
related the circumstance to Paulinus.

The lives of the saints are full of apparitions of deceased persons;
and if they were collected, large volumes might be filled. St.
Ambrose, of whom we have just spoken, discovered after a miraculous
fashion the bodies of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius,[349] and those
of St. Nazairius and St. Celsus.

Evodius, Bishop of Upsal in Africa,[350] a great friend of St.
Augustine, was well persuaded of the reality of apparitions of the
dead, from his own experience, and he relates several instances of
such things which happened in his own time; as that of a good widow to
whom a deacon appeared who had been dead for four years. He was
accompanied by several of the servants of God, of both sexes, who were
preparing