Mention is made of this ceremony in the breviary of Chartres, on the 17th of October.
The new Christian community was not destined to enjoy long peace. Quirinus, the governor of the country under the Emperor Claudius, in obedience to an edict issued by the latter against the Christians, entered the grotto with a company of armed soldiers when the faithful were there assembled, and, seizing S. Potentian, S. Edoald, and S. Altinus, reserved them for more prolonged sufferings, while he caused the rest of the worshippers to be massacred on the spot. Among these was found his own daughter, since honored in the church as S. Modesta. The bodies of the martyrs were thrown into the well of the grotto, which from that time bore the name of Le puits des Saints Forts.
The governor, being struck with sudden death, was not permitted to carry out his designs against S. Potentian and his companions, who, being set at liberty, proceeded to Sens to continue their labors, leaving S. Aventine at Chartres, of which city he was the first bishop.
Setting aside the improbable legend which relates that the people of Chartres, upon learning that the Blessed Virgin was still living, sent an embassy to Ephesus to convey to her their homage, and pray her to receive the title of Domina Carnoti, which, according to Guillaume le Breton, she willingly accepted, we hope in a future article to give the eventful history of the erection of the cathedral over the primitive grotto, which in the XIth century grew into the present vast and massive crypt, perhaps the finest in the world.
[EARLY MARRIAGE.]
When Dr. Johnson advocated the early marriage of young men, he spoke the morality of the Christian, the wisdom of the philosopher, and the knowledge of the man of the world. He knew from his own experience, and from the wild lives of the men with whom he associated during the first years of his London life, that early marriage is the great safeguard of youth, the preserver of purity, and the sure promoter of domestic happiness—“the only bliss of paradise that has survived the fall.”
Profoundly convinced of this, we deliberately declare that early marriages should be, as a general rule, recommended and promoted by those who have influence or authority over young people. By early marriage, we do not mean the marriage of boys and girls, but of men and women. Marriage is the only natural, proper, and safe state for the majority of persons living in the world. If one-third of the angelic host—those bright and pure spirits fresh from the divine Hand—fell at the very first temptation, how can man, prone as he is to sin, hope to escape? If the saints of old, who subjected their bodies to the spirit by penances so terrible as almost to realize Byron’s remark “of meriting heaven by making earth a hell”—if these holy men found it so difficult to resist the allurements of the flesh, how can the pampered and luxurious Christians of these days, living in an atmosphere of seduction, mingling in a gay and wicked world, and thrown in constant contact with men who break all the Commandments with perfect indifference—how can these Christians of the latter days hope to avoid the dangers that surround them if they refuse to seek the safety that is presented to them in marriage, unless they make use of unusual means and preventives which few are willing to adopt.
Byron, who had tried all pleasures, and gratified all his passions unto satiety, declared that the “best state for morals is marriage.” This was the mature and deliberate opinion of a man who had married most wretchedly.
Shakespeare says, “A young man married is a man that’s marr’d.”[212] But married, as he was, at the early age of eighteen, to a woman eight years his senior, he was a most glorious contradiction of his own assertion. So assured is his position as the monarch of the world of literature, that the most daring and ambitious spirits have never presumed to dispute his supremacy; much less has there ever been found a man bold enough to play the part of the Lucifer of literature, and attempt to deprive Shakespeare of his “pride of place.” Surely, the fact of the poor Stratford boy filling the world with his name and fame after marrying at eighteen, is an argument in favor of early marriage.