a certain stranger, observing his extreme compassion towards the poor, with a view to try him, drew near to him as he was visiting the sick in his usual manner, and cried, " Have compassion on me, for I am a wretched captive." " Give him six aurei," said the patriarch to his almoner. On receiving them the poor man retired and changed his dress, and returning by another way, fell to the earth and cried, " Have compassion on me, for I am perishing with hunger." " Give him six aurei," said the patriarch again ; after doing which, his attendant whispered in his ear, " Sir, he has now received alms twice." On the beggar coming a third time and asking alms, the servant gave information to his master; on which that truly compassionate man bade him give the man twelve aurei, "lest mayhap," said he, "it be Christ himself who is come to try me." Death of the emperor Phocas. In the year of grace 612, the emperor Phocas, in the midst of his cruel rage against his servants, was slain by the command of Heraclius, the patrician of Africa, who thereupon assumed the government of the state. The reign of Heraclius. In the year of grace 613, Heraclius, having obtained the Roman empire, reigned thirty-one years.* In this year there was, in the town of Maurienne in France, a certain woman exceedingly devoted to St. John the Baptist. Continuing instant in prayer, she for three years besought the Lord to give, her one of his limbs; and, putting her hope in God, she vowed that she would eat nothing until she obtained her petition; and so, continuing fasting for seven days, she on the seventh day beheld a thumb appear on the altar, of wonderful whiteness, and received the gift of God with joy. Three bishops, coming to adore the thumb, and wishing to take away a portion of it with them, they were amazed at beholding three drops of blood fall from it on the cloth on which it was laid, and rejoiced that they were worthy each to possess one. Deusdedil is made pope. In the year of grace 614, Deusdedit sat in the Roman chair three years and twenty days, after which the see was * Heraclius began to reign, not in 613,butin610, and died Feb. 11,641.