About the year 484, whilst Clovis was marching upon Soissons, the governor of Tournai, an inveterate heathen, profited by his absence, to banish from the city all who bore the name of Christians, or to seize on their goods. Serenus and Blanda were included in the number of exiles. They took their son with them, and found a place of refuge at a distance of about six miles from Tournai, where they built a church, in honour of S. Peter. A number of Christians settled on the same spot, and many heathen, converted by Serenus, helped to swell the colony, which was called Blandinium.[59] The number was now so great that they asked for, and obtained, a bishop, Theodore by name, who died immediately after his ordination. The faithful assembled at Blandinium, charmed by the virtues of Eleutherius, elected him to succeed Theodore, and sent him to Rome. The Pope approved of the choice, and the new pastor was consecrated in the year 487, at the age of thirty. Now it fell out that the daughter of the governor of Tournai was passionately in love with the young and handsome Eleutherius, and she resolved to make the attempt to withdraw him from the ministry of God, that he might serve the world, reposing in her love, and the favour of her father. She found him engaged in prayer, but, regardless of what he was about, she arrested his attention, and declared to him her passion. He started to his feet, and she held him by the mantle. Then, like another Joseph, he cast his mantle from him, and fled from her presence. The unfortunate girl, heart-broken, sank upon the ground, breathless and motionless. When she had been buried, Eleutherius returned, and now, touched at her misfortune, as much as he had been irritated at her offence, he summoned the father, and promised to restore to him his daughter, if he would embrace Christianity. The governor readily consented. Then Eleutherius celebrated the holy sacrifice, and followed by all his clergy and the faithful, went to the tomb, and struck it with his pastoral staff. But God revealed to the bishop that the promise of the father was made without purpose of observing it. The earth shook, but the dead rose not. Eleutherius passed the night in prayers, and returned to the grave on the morrow; again, the earth trembled, but the heart of the heathen governor remained unshaken. On the third day the father came with tears, and all tokens of true contrition, to promise sincere repentance; then the bishop went again to the sepulchre. At his command the stone was rolled away. He called thrice to the dead girl to rise. Then she sat up, and the people uttered a shout of joy. Eleutherius took her by the hand, and presented her to her father. After that, he bade her fast for six days, and, on the seventh, he baptized her, his mother, Blanda, standing as god-mother, and giving her her name. The father, however, would not keep his promise, but withdrew his child from the hands of the Christians, and threatened to disinherit her unless she returned to the worship of idols. A plague breaking out shortly after, in Tournai, was attributed to the incantations of Eleutherius, who was seized at night, severely beaten, and thrown into prison, from which, however, he escaped, and returned to his flock. The plague continued its ravages with such fury, that the city of Tournai was deserted of its inhabitants, who fled into the country, in hopes of escaping the epidemic by isolation. Then the governor was humbled, and, coming to Eleutherius, implored him to forgive his past resistance to the truth, and to baptize him in the faith of Christ. Eleutherius, after having instructed him, and made him prepare, by fasting, for the holy sacrament, afterwards baptized him. The submission of the governor led to the recall of Eleutherius, who re-entered the city of Tournai on the 22nd September; a day which has ever since been celebrated as a feast in that place. Eleutherius at once overthrew the temple of Apollo and the altars of the heathen deities in Tournai; and his labours to convince the pagans were followed by such effect that, in one week, probably that of Pentecost, he baptized as many as eleven thousand persons.

As soon as heathenism was overcome, heresy manifested itself, and, as Eleutherius was himself accused, he visited Rome, in 501, to vindicate his orthodoxy before Pope Symmachus. He combated Arian false doctrine with word of mouth, and with his pen, and made a second journey to Rome, to Pope Hormisdas, to obtain confirmation of his writings. On his return some of the heretics fell upon him, as he left the church after mass one morning, and wounded him so cruelly that he died of his injuries five weeks later, in the 66th year of his age. He was laid in the church built by his father at Blandain, but his relics were afterwards removed to Tournai, of which city he is patron.

S. MILDRED, V. ABSS.
(END OF 7TH CENT.)

[Anglican Martyrology, Molanus, and Saussaye. It is uncertain which of her two festivals, Feb. 20th or July 13th, is the day of her death, and which the day of her translation. In the first edition of Wilson's Anglican Martyrology, Feb. 20th is given as the day of her death; in the second edition as that of her translation; and he is probably right, for he follows in this William Thorne's Chronicle.]

Domneva, or Ermenberga, the wife of Merewald, son of Penda, King of Mercia, had by him three daughters and a son, who were all reckoned by our ancestors among the saints. These were Milburgh, Mildred, Mildgitha, and Mervin. King Egbert having built and endowed the nunnery of Minster, in the isle of Thanet, Domneva became its first abbess, and the house was soon occupied by seventy nuns. But she soon gave up the government to her daughter Mildred, whom she had sent to France, to Chelles, to receive a literary and religious education. The Abbess of Chelles, far from encouraging the young princess to embrace monastic life, employed every kind of threat and ill-usage to compel her to marry one of her relations. But Mildred resisted victoriously. She returned to England to govern the abbey founded by her mother, and to give an example of all monastic virtues to her seventy companions. Very few details of her life have been preserved, which makes the extraordinary and prolonged popularity which has attached to her name, her relics, and everything belonging to her, all the more wonderful. Her popularity eclipsed that of S. Augustine, even in the district which he first won to the faith, and to such a point that the rock which had received the mark of his first footsteps, and which lies a little east of Minster, took and retained, up to the last century, the name of S. Mildred's Rock.

S. EUCHER, B. OF ORLEANS.
(A.D. 743.)

[Roman Martyrology. In those of Bede, Notker, and Rabanus, on Feb. 21st. Authorities;—A Life by a contemporary, published by Bollandus.]

This saint was dedicated to God from his infancy. About the year 714, he retired to the abbey of Jumièges, on the banks of the Seine, in the arch-diocese of Rouen. After having spent six or seven years there, his uncle Suavaric, bishop of Orleans, died, and Eucher was elected in his room, with the consent of Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, in 721. But he shortly afterwards incurred the anger of Charles Martel, for some political reason not mentioned by the author of the life of the saint, and Charles, on his return from defeating the Saracens near Tours, in 732, took the bishop from his see, and sent him into exile to Cologne, where, however, his piety and gentleness attracted such general admiration, that Charles ordered him to be removed into the less populous county of Hasbain, or Haspengau, in the territory of Liége, under the guard of Robert, the governor of that county, who allowed him to retire into the monastery of S. Trond, where he passed the rest of his days in prayer, glad to rest once more in the peaceful round of cloister life. He was buried at S. Trond, and there his relics are preserved.