Page:PracticalCommentaryOnHolyScripture.djvu/404

 If  a Catholic  eats  meat  on  Friday,  he  acts  as  if  he  were  not a Catholic, and  refuses  obedience  to  the  Church  of  God. Do you always observe  the  days  of  abstinence?

NTIOCHUS commanded that  a certain  widow, with  her seven sons,  should  be  brought  into  his  presence,  and  should be forced  to  eat  of  the  forbidden  flesh. They all  told  him  that, as their  law  did  not  allow  them  the  use  of  such  meat,  they  could not obey  his  command. He immediately  had  them  scourged with whips.

The eldest  of  the  brothers  told  the  king  that  they  were ready to  die  rather  than  transgress  the  law  of  their  God. Then the king,  enraged  at  the  young  man’s  boldness,  ordered  his  tongue to be  plucked  out,  the  skin  of  his  head  to  be  torn  off,  his hands and  feet  to  be  cut  off,  and  finally  that  he  should  be  burnt alive before  his  mother  and  brothers. While he  was  suffering these cruel  torments,  his  mother  and  his  brothers  exhorted  him to die  courageously.

The first  brother  being  dead,  they  seized  the  second,  and, having tom  the  skin  from  off  his  head,  they  asked  him  if  he would  eat  rather  than  undergo  the  rest  of  the  torments. But he, refusing not  less  firmly  and  courageously  than  his  elder  brother, was tortured  in  the  same  way  till  he  expired. When he was  about  to  die  he  exclaimed:  “Thou,  O most  wicked  man, destroyest us  out  of  this  present  life,  but  the  King  of  the