Identifier: foxeschristianma00fox (find matches)
Title: Foxe's Christian martyrs of the world; the story of the advance of Christianity from Bible times to latest periods of persecution ..
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Foxe, John, 1516-1587
Subjects: Martyrs Persecution Church history
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa., C. Foster publishing co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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s of angry facesranged around him, called upon them in a solemn, deep-toned voicewhich resounded through the great enclosure. These were his words :Do not, said he, requite Gods mercy in turning away the swords ofyour enemies by murdering each other! Angry shouts and cries at once drowned his voice: This is noplace for preaching!—the old customs of Rome must be observed!—On, gladiators! Thrusting aside the stranger, the gladiators wouldhave again attacked each other, but the man stood between, holdingthem apart, and trying in vain to be heard. Sedition ! sedition ! downwith him! was then the cry; and the gladiators, enraged at the inter-ference of an outsider with their chosen vocation, at once stabbedhim to death. Stones, or whatever missiles came to hand, also raineddown upon him from the furious people, and thus he perished, in themidst of the arena. His dress showed him to be one of the hermits who vowed them-selves to a holy life of prayer and self-denial, and who were rever-
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o-dLftiii j0F^ ^r— ^^^ M****s^5^^-<s^^* * TELEMACHUS SEPARATES THE GLADIATORS AND LOSES HIS OWN LIFE. 158 THE WORLDS CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. enced by even the thoughtless and combat-loving Romans. Thefew who knew him told how he had come from the wilds of Asiaon a pilgrimage, to visit the churches and keep his Christmas atRome; they knew he was a holy man, and that his name wasTelemachus—no more. His spirit had been stirred by the sight ofthousands flocking to see men slaughter one another, and in hissimple-hearted zeal he had tried to convince them of the cruelty andwickedness of their conduct. He had died, but not in vain. His workwas accomplished at the moment he was struck down, for the shockof such a death before their eyes turned the hearts of the people:they saw the hideous aspects of the favorite vice to which they hadblindly surrendered themselves; and from the day Telemachus felldead in the Colosseum, no other fight of gladiators was ever heldthere. Conquest of Rome by the

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