A.D. 1171. ASSASSINATION OP AKOIBISnOP THOMAS. 337 lamb, without a murmur, without complaint, and, offering himself up as a sacrifice to the Lord, implored the protection of the Saints. And, in order that no one of these fell satellites might bo said to be guiltless in consequence of not having touched the archbishop, a second and a third atrociously struck the head of the suffering martyr with their swords, and clave it asunder, and dashed this victim of the Holy Ghost to the ground. The fourth, raging with a still more deadly, or rather fiendlike, cruelty, when prostrate and expiring, cut off his shorn crown, dashed in his skull, and, thrusting his sword into the head, scattered his brains and blood upon the stone pavement. In the mixture of the two substances the difference of colour seemed to remind any one, who considered the matter with due piety, of the twofold merits of the martyr. For, in the whiteness of the brains was shown the purity of his innocence, while the purple colour of the blood bespoke his martyrdom. With both these becomingly arrayed, as though with a nuptial garment, the martyr Thomas was rendered a worthy guest at the heavenly table. Thus, even thus, the martyr Thomas become, by virtue of his long-suffering, a precious stone of adamant for the heavenly edifice, being squared by the blows of swords, was joined in heaven unto Christ, the headstone of the corner. Wherefore this our Abel, being made perfect by the glory of martyrdom, in a moment lived out many ages. Thus it was that, at the beginning of the seventh year of his exile, the above-named martyr Thomas struggled even unto the death for the love of God and the liberties of the Church, which had almost entirely perished as regards the English Church. He did not stand in fear of the words of the unrighteous ; but, having his foundation upon a firm rock, that k, upon Christ, for the name of Christ, and in the Church of Christ, by the swords of the wicked, on the fifth day of the Nativity of our Lord, being the day after Innocents' day, he himself an innocent, died. His innocent life and his death, as being precious in the eyes of God, innumerable miracles deservedly bespeak, which, not only in the place where he rested, but in divers nations and kingdoms, were wondrously shown. On the same day the passion of the blessed Thomas was revealed by the Holy Ghost to the blessed Godric, the anchorite, at Finchale, a place which is distant from Canterbury more than VOL. ι. ζ