Saint AMBROSE BARLOW, OSB, 1641

ROMANS THE ONLY PRIESTS

HE was led to Lancaster gaol amidst a jeering mob, but was so weak that he had to be held on the horse's back. In prison he wonderfully recovered his health, and refused every offer of escape or of petitions for his life. At his trial, after four months' imprisonment, the judge asked him what he thought of the laws by which priests were put to death. "All laws," he answered, " made against Catholics on account of their religion are unjust and impious, and that especially which condemns priests to suffer as traitors merely because they are Roman—that is, true priests. For there are no other priests but the Roman, and if they be destroyed, what must become of the Divine law when none remain to preach God's law and administer the Sacraments ? And if, my Lord, in consequence of so unjust a law, you condemn me to die, you would send me to Heaven and yourself to Hell." He was sentenced, and brought out to suffer on Friday, September 10, carrying a wooden cross which he had made. He told the ministers who pestered him that he had something else to do than to hearken to their fooleries, and saying the Miserere he went to Heaven, September 10, 1641.

"But I chose Jerusalem that my name might be there, and I chose David to set him over my people."—2 PARAL. vi. 6.