inhabitants, but they nevertheless took root among some of them
in a greater or less degree, until the nine years' persecution
of the tyrant Diocletian, when the churches throughout the whole
world were overthrown, all the copies of the Holy Scriptures
which could be found burned in the streets, and the chosen pastors
of God's flock butchered, together with their innocent sheep,
in order that not a vestige, if possible, might remain in some
provinces of Christ's religion. What disgraceful flights then
took place-what slaughter and death inflicted by way of punishment
in divers shapes,--what dreadful apostacies from religion; and
on the contrary, what glorious crowns of martyrdom then were won,
--what raving fury was displayed by the persecutors, and patience
on the part of the suffering saints, ecclesiastical history informs
us; for the whole church were crowding in a body, to leave behind
them the dark things of this world, and to make the best of their
way to the happy mansions of heaven, as if to their proper home.

10. God, therefore, who wishes all men to be saved, and who calls
sinners no less than those who think themselves righteous, magnified
his mercy towards us, and, as we know, during the above-named
persecution, that Britain might not totally be enveloped in the
dark shades of night, he, of his own free gift, kindled up among
us bright luminaries of holy martyrs, whose places of burial and
of martyrdom, had they not for our manifold crimes been interfered
with and destroyed by the barbarians, would have still kindled
in the minds of the beholders no small fire of divine charity.
Such were St. Alban of Verulam, Aaron and Julius, citizens of
Carlisle, * and the rest, of both sexes, who in different places
stood their ground in the Christian contest.