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was preaching to the people on the subject of the miracle, the like grace was accorded to Palladia, and she too was cured amidst the cries of joy of a vast multitude. S. Augustin has commemorated the event in two sermons. The doctrine of the Church at that day regarding the honour which is to be paid to the martyrs he teaches us in these words; "In that life is perfection, to which the martyrs have attained. And therefore ecclesiastical discipline teaches, what the faithful have known, that when the martyrs are named at the altar of God, we do not pray for them, but we pray for the other departed who are commemorated. For it were wrong to pray for the martyrs, to whose prayers we ought to commend ourselves '."

In September, 426, S. Augustin appointed Eraclius to succeed him in the see of Hippo. His consecration was not to take place till the decease of S. Augustin. For the rule of the Nicene council was then more strictly observed. Soon after this, the Vandals came over in great numbers from Spain into Africa, laying waste the country, and persecuting the Christians most cruelly. Honoratus, an African bishop, asked the opinion of S. Augustin, whether it was the duty of a Catholic bishop to seek safety from these dangers by flight. Augustin replied, that when the persecution was general, a Christian pastor ought to remain with his flock, and encourage them by his presence. But if the bishop alone was sought for by the persecutor, then he might withdraw.

The Vandals laid siege to Hippo in 430. S.

1 Serm. 159.

B b

Augustin and his clerks cried earnestly to God to deliver them from their hands.

In the third month

of the siege, he was attacked by a violent fever, but continued to perform the duties of his office while his strength lasted. At length he was confined to his couch, and felt his end approaching. He thought that no Christian should leave the world without the deepest penitence, and accordingly, to excite his own he had the penitential psalms affixed to the walls of his chamber, near his bed. He recited them continually, with many tears. About ten days before he departed, he desired that no one should enter his chamber, except at the hours when his physician visited him, and when his food was brought. The rest of the time he passed in solitude, and in unceasing prayer. On the 28th of August he yielded up his soul to Christ in the presence of his clerks and religious brethren, who assisted him in his agony with their prayers. Many bishops came to his funeral, and the adorable Sacrifice was solemnly offered for his soul. His books, which were all that he possessed in the world, he left to the church of Hippo. Many miracles attested his admission into the society of the Saints.

A short time after his decease, some priests in Gaul ventured to call in question his doctrine. Pope Celestin, in 431, wrote in his defence, and declared him "a man of holy memory, who has ever been in our communion, for his merit, and against whom there has never been a suspicion of evil; his learning was so great, that our predecessors have enrolled him among the doctors; he was loved and honoured by all the world."

His body was laid in the church of S. Stephen, where it rested for nearly fifty years. When the African bishops were banished into Sardinia by Huneric, they carried it with them, and many miracles were performed as it passed. About the year 710, Luitprand, king of Lombardy, purchased it from the Sarazins, who were then masters of Sardinia, for a large sum of money, and translated it with great honour to Pavia. It was solemnly carried into the church of S. Peter in that city, on the 28th of February. This church was afterwards named in honour of S. Augustin, and is now served by Canons Regular and by Hermits of his Order. His festival was observed at Carthage in the sixth age. It is a holyday of obligation in all the Spanish dominions.

In the same year as S. Augustin deceased, the third general council was summoned to meet at Ephesus. S. Augustin was invited to be present; but when the messenger of Theodosius arrived at Hippo, he found that the saint had departed.

The writings of S. Augustin are very numerous. Many of them were composed in refutation of the prevailing heresies of his age. The principal of them are treatises, On Order, On the Master, and On Music; On Freewill, On the Manners of the Church, and On the true Religion, against the Manichees; On Baptism, against the Donatists; On the Trinity, against the Arians; and On Nature and Grace, against the Pelagians. He also wrote commentaries on various parts of the holy Gospels; Enarrations, or discourses on the psalms; Enchiridion, or a manual of the Christian religion; besides many sermons and epistles. In 397 he composed his Con

fessions, which remain a lasting memorial of his penitence, for the comfort and encouragement of all who have followed in the same blessed course. One of his greatest works is his treatise On the City of God. It was begun in 413, and occupied him for thirteen years. In 428, he wrote a book of Retractations, or corrections of errors in his former works. In it he enumerates ninety-three separate treatises.

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The four great Orders of religious in Christendom are the Benedictine, the Augustinian, and the Franciscan, in the West; and that of S. Basil, in the East. Many distinguished branches of the monastic bodies have adopted the Rule of S. Augustin, as the foundation of their own. In some instances their own particular constitutions prevented a perfect imitation of their great model, but in its chief points they followed it as closely as possible. The most renowned of these branches are the following the Regular Canons of S. Austin, who did not attain their greatest fame till the twelfth century, when Pope Innocent II. in the Lateran council of 1139, finally enjoined them to adopt the rule of S. Augustin. Before that time, the name of Regular Canons was often given to the Secular Canons, who were without any Rule, to distinguish them from the parochial clergy. The Canons Præmonstratenses, or White Canons, founded by S. Norbert, archbishop of Magdeburgh, at Præmonstratum, in Picardy, about the year 1120. The Sempringham, or Gilbertine Canons, instituted at Sempringham, in Lincolnshire, in 1148, by S. Gilbert. The houses of this order had brethren and sisters living under the same roof, though strictly separated. The men followed

the Rule of S. Augustin, and the women the Cistercian reform of the Rule of S. Benedict. The Austin Friars, or Friars Eremites, had their origin, as we have seen, in the community at Tagaste. Their order was wholly destroyed in Africa by the Vandals, but was revived in Europe in several congregations, which were all united in one Order by pope Alexander IV. in 1254. Their present constitutions were compiled in 1287. They were declared, by S. Pius V. in 1567, one of the four Mendicant Orders, and take rank in processions after the Dominican and Franciscan, and before the Carmelite, or White Friars. The Crossed, or Crouched Friars, instituted, or at least reformed, by Gerard, prior of S. Mary of Morello, at Bologna, and confirmed by pope Alexander III. in 1169. The Trinitarian, or Maturine Friars, or of the Holy Trinity, for the redemption of captives, sometimes also called Red Friars, were founded by S. John de Matha and S. Felix de Valois, in France, in 1197. The Dominican, or Preaching Friars, called from their habit Black Friars, and in France, Jacobins, from their first house in Paris being in the Rue S. Jacques; their great founder, S. Dominic, was born in 1170, in the Diocese of Osma, in Old Castile. His order was confirmed by pope Innocent III. in the Lateran council, 1215. The Brigittin Nuns, or Nuns of our Holy Saviour, instituted in the fourteenth century by S. Brigit, duchess of Nericia, in Sweden. Besides these religious Orders, the two great military Orders of the Knights Hospitallers and Knights Templars adopted the Rule of S. Augustin. The former, called of S. John of Jerusalem, afterwards of Rhodes, and still more recently of

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