but there will come yet a harder persecution at Antichrist's coming,
because the martyrs have wrought many wonders through God,
and in Antichrist's time these wonders will fail;
and the devil will then work wonders by his enchantment,
with false illusions, to deceive the faithful.
Great anguish it will be to the venerable saints
that the fiendly persecutor will work many signs,
and they themselves may not do as the martyrs did,
showing wonders in the worst times.
Nevertheless, they shall be preserved through the Saviour's might
if they keep their faith unto the end,
in the troublous persecutions of the wicked devil;
even as the Saviour said in His holy gospel.
He Who shall easily destroy that Antichrist;
to Whom be glory and praise for ever and ever. Amen.
XXXVI.
DECEMBER 21: PASSION OF ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE.
I was for a long while in doubt as to translating into English the Passion of St. Thomas the apostle, for various reasons; and chiefly because the great Augustine denies the story concerning a cup-bearer whose hand a black dog is said to have carried to a feast. In contradicting this story, Augustine himself wrote in these words — ' which narrative it is permitted us to disbelieve; for it is not in the catholic canon.' Nevertheless those who, owing to I know not what sort of blindness, are very bitterly opposed to the bodily punishments described in the Old Testament, because they are altogether ignorant of the spirit in which they were inflicted and of the dispensations of different times, both read it
