were exposed to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre. Some modern writers
on ecclesiastical history, when they use this letter, say nothing of the
wonderful stories of the martyrs' sufferings. Sanctus, as the letter
says, was burnt with plates of hot iron till his body was one sore and
had lost all human form; but on being put to the rack he recovered his
former appearance under the torture, which was thus a cure instead of a
punishment. He was afterwards torn by beasts, and placed on an iron
chair and roasted. He died at last.

The letter is one piece of evidence. The writer, whoever he was that
wrote in the name of the Gallic Christians, is our evidence both for the
ordinary and the extraordinary circumstances of the story, and we cannot
accept his evidence for one part and reject the other. We often receive
small evidence as a proof of a thing we believe to be within the limits
of probability or possibility, and we reject exactly the same evidence,
when the thing to which it refers appears very improbable or impossible.
But this is a false method of inquiry, though it is followed by some
modern writers, who select what they like from a story and reject the
rest of the evidence; or if they do not reject it, they dishonestly
suppress it. A man can only act consistently by accepting all this
letter or rejecting it all, and we cannot blame him for either. But he
who rejects it may still admit that such a letter may be founded on real
facts; and he would make this admission as the most probable way of
accounting for the existence of the letter; but if, as he would suppose,
the writer has stated some things falsely, he cannot tell what part of
his story is worthy of credit.

The war on the northern frontier appears to have been uninterrupted
during the visit of Antoninus to the East, and on his return the emperor
again left Rome to oppose the barbarians. The Germanic people were