Absimarus Tiberias to be executed. He also tore out the eyes of the patriarch Gallinicus, and sent him to Rome, and slew a countless multitude of Roman citizens. He likewise caused the town of Chersona, where he had lived in banishment, to be destroyed, and practised unheard-of cruelties on his enemies. A.D. 707. Constantine was elected to the Roman chair, and occupied it seven years and fifteen days, and the see was vacant forty days. About the same time, there was a certain soldier, ι of the family of Kinred, king of Mercia, a man openly devoted | to vice ; and as the king earnestly advised him to seek repentance, he so disregarded his warnings of salvation, that he postponed all amendment of his flagitious life. But about this time he was seized with an illness, and took to his bed, and began to yield to the attacks of severe pain. Accordingly, the king went to see him, and frequently exhorted him to turn to repentance for his sins, before he died. But he replied that he would not confess his sins till he recovered from his sickness, lest his companions should reproach him with having done so through fear of death. And when, as his disease became more violent, the king came again to him to exhort him, he began to cry out with a piteous voice, " Why have you come hither ? you cannot any longer be any advantage or salvation to me.'9 And the king answered him, " Do not say so; study to adopt sensible and sane thoughts." " I am not insane," said the man, "but I have a terrible conscience before my eyes. For a little before you came, two youths entered this house, and sat down close to me, the one at my head, and the other at my feet, and one of them brought me forth a book, very beautiful, but very small, for me to read, in which I found all the good deeds which I have hitherto done, set down. But they, looking on the book, said nothing, and immediately there came up an army of most foul, malignant spirits, which blockaded this house on the outside, and sitting down inside also, filled the greater part of it. Then one of the foulest among them, who appeared larger than his fellows, produced a book of horrible appearance and enormous bulk, and insupportable weight, and ordered one of his attendants to bring it to me to read. And when I had read in it, I found all the wickednesses, all the offences that I had committed, not only in deed or word, but in even the slightest thought, written down in it most legibly, in the blackest characters. And they