Page:Wives and mothers in the olden time.djvu/28

12 and had the effect of inspiring her with the greatest horror for any weakness or meanness. Of her family St. Jerome wrote:—

’Remember that in your family a woman has rarely, if ever, contracted a second marriage.

But, however great a safeguard might he the keen sense of her dignity and of her noble blood, the feelings inspired by the Christian faith as existing in the bosom of her family were a still surer stay. It is difficult to realise in these days the strength and vividness of faith in those families who had preserved it at the price of their blood, at the moment when the persecution first ceased and before any laxity had crept in.

Whilst the old Pagan Eoman lived but for this world, the Christians found in the Church a still dearer country ; and the duties of their new faith, with the faithful observance of its practices, were put above and before everything else.

Paula was brought up by her mother in that spirit of love for religion, of profound aversion of anything which savoured of Paganism, and in that gravity of life which was suitable to a patrician and a Christian. Carefully guarded from evil by her own fireside, she never frequented theatres or took part in the shows of the Circus, but passed by the doors of those noisy Pagan assemblies without a moment s regret, when accompanying her mother to the Basilicas or the feasts of the Church, or to the tombs of the martyrs in the Catacombs. We all know how dear this latter devotion was to the Christians of the fourth century. In truth, the martyrs had been the conquerors, and the Christians, who reaped the fruit of their bloody combats, loved to glorify the victors.

See, exclaimed St. Chrysostom, the tombs of the martyrs! The Emperor himself kneels there, lays his