tempt; but they had not, on the other hand, warm, eager, sympathetic, indignant, agonised friends. There is another characteristic in Chrysostom, which perhaps gained for him this great blessing. He had, as it would seem, a vigour, elasticity, and, what may be called, sunniness of mind, all his own. He was ever sanguine, seldom sad. Basil had a lifelong malady, involving continual gnawing pain and a weight of physical dejection. He bore his burden well and gracefully, like the great saint he was, as Job bore his ; but it was a burden like Job's. He was a calm, mild, autumnal day; St. John Chrysostom was a day in spring-time, bright and rainy, and glittering through its rain. He, as well as Basil, was bowed with infirmities of body; he was often ill; he was thin and wizened; cold was a misery to him; heat affected his head; he scarcely dare touch wine: he was obliged to use the bath; obliged to take exercise, or rather to be continually on the move. Whether from a nervous or febrile complexion, he was warm in temper; or at least, at certain times, his emotion struggled hard with his reason. But he had that noble spirit which complains as little as possible; which makes the best of things; which soon recovers its equanimity, and hopes on in circumstances when others sink down in despair.

Every one has his own gifts. I often muse upon, I have sometimes quoted, St. Athanasius's words about St. Antony; how the young ascetic went first to this holy man, and then to that, according as each was qualified to teach him; "marking down in his own thoughts the special attainment of each; his refinement, or his continuance in prayer, or his meekness, or his kindness, or his power of long-watching, or his studiousness." And thus there was in Basil tenderness, gravity, self-possession, resignation, penance; in Gregory, innocence, amiableness, an inward peace, a self-resource, an independence of external things; and all these graces in both saints grafted upon Christian perfection, and raised to an heroic standard. The Giver of all good suits His gifts to the circumstances of the recipient. John, in like manner, was endowed with those which John required.

But now all these fragrant and beautiful flowers of grace are to be placed where, to all seeming, they will "waste their sweetness on the desert air," and then wither away, as far as this earth is concerned. The eloquent voice is to be mute: Chrysostom has preached his last sermon; for the last time crowds of devoted followers-holy bishops, zealous priests, youths whom he is training to virtue, noble ladies who have become deaconesses of the Church,-for the last time the court,

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the populace, his faithful poor, have lingered on the sound of his touching accents. They shall never hear him again. The silver cord is to be broken; the golden fillet is to shrink; he is vanishing from the eyes of men. It was just at the summer solstice, in the year 404, that the order came to him from the emperor to go. He had resisted a like order already; but now the state of things was so near upon a bloody quarrel, that it seemed expedient to obey. He went into his church for the last time; to take leave, as he said, of the angel who had the charge of it. Then he bade farewell to some ecclesiastics, his intimate friends: "I am going to take some rest," he said, so calling his exile; "but do you remain here." And then, lastly, he took leave in the baptistery of some heart-broken pious women, to whom he spoke with greater sadness and effusion of heart. "O my daughters," he said, come and hear what I have to say; my matters have an end, as I see well. I have finished my course; it may be, you will not see my face again. But one thing I ask of you, continue your services to the church; and, if there be one put into my place against his will, and without his seeking, and with the consent of all, him obey as if he were John; for a church cannot be without a Bishop: so shall ye find mercy. And remember me in your prayers." Then, ordering the beast he rode to the western gate of the ecclesiastical buildings, to mislead his people, who were keeping guard over his person, he issued by the eastern, and, with a protest, surrendered himself to the imperial guard. He was at once put into a boat, and carried over into Asia. Oh, how down was his heart, and what sorrowful thoughts chased one another across it; and how his life seemed to him a dream, and his long labours to have done nothing at all, and to be lost, as he landed on the opposite coast, and was conducted up the country to Nicæa, there to stay awhile, till his place of banishment was finally determined!

His sadness, however, was of no long duration; "weeping may take place in the evening, but in the morning gladness.' The change of air and scene, the quiet, and above all, his own cheerful spirit, came to his aid; and he began to hope again. Men of gentle and generous tempers cannot understand how any one can be a good hater; and certainly our saint did not realise the inveterate malice and the savage determination of his enemies. He might forgive them; they could not forgive him. This, however, was not as yet a matter of experience with him; accordingly he began to speculate on the possibility of the emperor's relenting, and changing his place of Pallad. p. 35, &c.

exile to some neighbouring city. He was soon undeceived in his anticipation. He was to prepare for a long journey. Scythia was mentioned as his destination; then Sebaste in Pontus; at length, Cucusus. It was his custom in all his afflictions, as we shall see in his letters, to use the words Glory to God" upon every event; and he now soon reconciled himself to his disappointment. He had to remain at Nicæa about a fortnight, and during that delay wrote various letters to Constantinople, some of which have been preserved.

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One of his most devoted of friends, and zealous of correspondents, was St. Olympias. This celebrated lady was the daughter of Count Seleucus, and the grand-child of Ablavius, the powerful minister in the reign of Constantine. She had been left an orphan and a pagan; and she did not change her single state for marriage before she had relieved her worse desolateness by entering into the family of Saints and Angels. In St. Chrysostom's words, she "deserted to Christian truth from the ranks of an impious family." Her husband, who was Prefect of Constantinople, died not many months after the marriage; on which, in spite of her great friends, she became a deaconess of the Church. At this time she was between thirty and forty years of age. The exiled Bishop wrote to her from Nicæa as follows:

"To Olympias.

My consolation increases with my trial. I am sanguine about the future. Every thing is going on prosperously, and I am sailing with a fair wind. There are, indeed, hidden rocks; there are tempests, the night is moonless, the darkness thick, and crags and cliffs are before me; yet, though I am navigating a sea like this, still I am not at all in worse case than many a man who is tossing about in harbour. Reflect on this, my religious lady, and rise above these alarms and troubles; and please to tell me about your own health : for myself, I am in health and in spirits. I find myself stronger than I was; I breathe a pure air; the soldiers of the prefecture, who are to accompany me, are so attentive as to leave me no need even of domestics, for they take on themselves domestic duties. They actually volunteered this charge of me for love of me ; and wherever I go I have a body-guard, each of them thinking himself happy in such a ministry. I have one drawback; my anxiety for your health. Inform me on this point" (Ep. 11).

He writes to her again a few days later:

"To Olympias.

Have no fear about this either, I mean my journey; as I have already written you word, I am improved in health and strength. The climate has agreed with me; and my conductors have shown

every wish, and done all in their power-more, indeed, than I desired myself to make me comfortable. I have written this when on the point of starting from Nicæa, the 3d of July. Give me some account from time to time of your own health; and also tell me that the cloud of despondency has passed away from you. If I were assured of this from yourself, I should write more frequently to you, under a feeling that my letters might be of service; but, so it is, many persons have crossed to this place who might have brought me a letter from you, and it has been a great sorrow that I have received nothing" (Ep. 10).

Perhaps he exaggerated his own hopefulness, in order to increase hers. He describes his state of feeling more exactly, and reveals more fully what occupied his thoughts, in a letter of about the same date to Constantius, a priest of Antioch, and intimate friend, who had taken a forward part together with the saint in extending Christianity to Phoenicia. This, as so many of his other letters, shows us how little his personal troubles had damped his evangelical zeal or his pastoral solicitude.

"To Constantius.

I am to set off on July 4 from Nicæa. I send you this letter to urge you, as I never cease to urge, though the storm increase in fury and the waves mount higher, not to fail to do your part in the matter which you originally undertook,—I mean the destruction of the Greek worship, the erection of churches, and the cure of souls and not to let the difficulties of things throw you upon your back. For myself, if I do not take my share of the work, but am remiss, I shall not be able to excuse myself by my present trouble; for Paul in prison and in the stocks fulfilled the office which fell to him, and Jonas inside the monster, and the Three Children in the midst of the furnace. You, then, my lord, remembering this, do not give over your duties towards Phoenicia, Arabia, and the churches of the East, knowing that your reward will only be the greater if, amid so great hindrances, you contribute towards the work.

And do not be backward in writing to me from time to time, nay, very frequently; for I now know that I am sent, not to Sebaste, but to Cucusus, whither it will be easier for you to get letters to me. Write me word how many churches are built every year, and what holy men have passed into Phoenicia, and what progress they have made. As to Salamis in Cyprus, which is beset by the Marcionite heretics, I should have treated with the proper persons, and set every thing right, but for my banishment. Urge those especially who have familiar speech with God, to use much prayer with much perseverance, for the stilling of the tempest which is at present wrecking the whole world" (Ep. 221).

Thus he set off into exile. He could not fully realise what was coming upon him; nor was the prospect of things so

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threatening as to suggest grave apprehension. Cucusus, his destination, was not so bad as Sebaste, much better than Scythia. It was on the high military way into Mesopotamia; it was a place at which two lines of road met from Asia Minor and Armenia, not to say a third from Issus on the Mediterranean. After the junction, the above roads passed on, as it would seem, to Melitene on the Euphrates, which afterwards, if not then, was a principal emporium in the commercial intercourse between Europe and Asia. Moreover it was the seat of a bishopric; and, what was of more consequence, was in the neighbourhood, and within easy reach, of his friends at Antioch. That city lay about 120 miles due south of Cucusus: those who visited him would pass by the high road through the Amanus or Black Mountain to Pagræ, and then, crossing or skirting round the Bay of Issus, to the mouth of the Pyramus, would ascend the valley of that river till they came to Cucusus. Nor was the journey thither from Nicæa at first sight formidable, except that the season was against him. It lay all the way along the great high-road of the Empire, passing from Nicea to Dadastana or to Dorylæum; thence to Ancyra, the capital of Galatia; then, turning to the south-east, down to Cæsarea, the capital of Cappadocia; then to Comana, the chief city in Cataonia; and thence, over the Taurus, to Cucusus, which was the first town out of Asia Minor, opening upon the valley of the Euphrates.

And, as he would have to pass along a noble road, so would he pass through rich towns in a fertile country. Ancyra was finely situated in the middle of an extensive plain, which, even under the Turkish yoke, is described by Tournefort as beautiful, well watered, and in parts well cultivated. Cæsarea, in the century before St. Chrysostom, had counted 400,000 inhabitants. Comana was placed in the richest of valleys, to which the Turks have given the name of Bostan, or the Garden. Nor was the journey less adapted for spiritual than for mental refreshment. It lay through Cæsarea, the see and tomb of St. Basil; and through Nyssa, the like home in life and death of St. Gregory his brother. Nazianzus lay to the right. The country of Cappadocia and Pontus was classical to an oriental Christian, for the great saints who had adorned it. Meanwhile he was gaining strength in Nicæa, a magnificent city magnificently placed; and, moreover, as full of religious inspirations as any city in the East. There it was that the Great Council had been held eighty years before, in which Arianism had been condemned, and the faith of the Apostles solemnly proclaimed, for the edification of all faithful souls in the many years of turbulence and temptation which were to follow.

VOL. II. NEW SERIES.

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