The Life of Saint Monica

								

free-for the child's sake and your old father's.'
"She pushed it from her. 'I am a Christian,' she said. 'God will keep
my child.'
"She was condemned with her companions to be thrown to the wild
beasts in the amphitheatre, and they were taken away and cast into a
dark dungeon. Every day they were tempted with promises of freedom to
renounce the Truth. The little babe of Felicitas was born in the
prison where they lay awaiting death. A Christian woman took the
infant to bring it up in the Faith. The young mother never saw the
face of her child in this world. One word, one little motion of the
hand, and they were free, restored again to their happy life of old
and the homes that were so dear. There were many, alas! in those
cruel days who had not courage for the fight, who sacrificed, and
went their way. Not so these weak women.
"Once again they brought Perpetua her little child to try to shake
her constancy. 'The prison was like a palace,' she said, while its
little downy head lay on her breast. Her father wept, and even struck
her in his grief and anger. 'I am a Christian,' she said, and gave
him back the babe.
"They were thrown to the wild beasts. Felicitas and Perpetua, who had
been tossed by a wild cow, though horribly gored, were still alive.
Gladiators were summoned to behead them. Felicitas died at the first
stroke, but the man's hand trembled, and he struck at Perpetua again
and again, wounding her, but not mortally. 'You are more afraid than
I,' she said gently, and taking the point of the sword held it to her
throat.
"'Strike now,' she said, and so passed into the presence of her God."
Monica drew a long breath.
"So weak and yet so strong," she said.
"So it is, my child," said the old woman. "It is those who are strong
and true in the little things of life who are strong and true in the
great trials."
"It is hard to be always strong and true," said the girl.
"Not if God's love comes always first," answered the old woman.
Monica was silent. She was thinking of her own young life, and how,
with all the safeguards of a Christian home about her, she had
narrowly escaped a great danger. From her babyhood she had been
brought up by her father's old nurse--not over-tenderly perhaps, but
wisely, for the city of Tagaste was largely pagan in its habits, and
the faithful old servant knew well what temptations would surround
her nursling in later years. Monica, though full of life and spirit,
had common sense and judgment beyond her years. She had also a great
love of God and of all that belonged to His holy service, and would
spend hours kneeling in the church in a quiet corner. It was there
she brought all her childish troubles and her childish hopes; it was
to the invisible Friend in the sanctuary that she confided all the
secrets of her young heart, and, above all, that desire to suffer for
Him and for His Church with which the stories of the martyrs had
inspired her. When the time slipped away too fast, and she returned