ring of flushed faces at these horrid sights; and in Arsenius's own
time, his miserable pupil, the weak Honorius, bethought himself of
celebrating once more the heathen festival of the Secular Games, and
formally to allow therein an exhibition of gladiators. But in the
midst of that show sprang down into the arena of the Colosseum of
Rome an unknown monk, some said from Nitria, some from Phrygia, and
with his own hands parted the combatants in the name of Christ and
God. The mob, baulked for a moment of their pleasure, sprang on
him, and stoned him to death. But the crime was followed by a
sudden revulsion of feeling. By an edict of the Emperor the
gladiatorial sports were forbidden for ever; and the Colosseum,
thenceforth useless, crumbled slowly away into that vast ruin which
remains unto this day, purified, as men well said, from the blood of
tens of thousands, by the blood of one true and noble martyr.



THE HERMITS OF ASIA



The impulse which, given by Antony, had been propagated in Asia by
his great pupil, Hilarion, spread rapidly far and wide. Hermits
took possession of the highest peaks of Sinai; and driven from
thence, so tradition tells, by fear of those mysterious noises which
still haunt its cliffs, settled at that sheltered spot where now
stands the convent of St. Catharine. Massacred again and again by
the wild Arab tribes, their places were filled up by fresh hermits,
and their spiritual descendants hold the convent to this day.