“The intervening time did not prove barren or unfruitful to the Witnesses, but through their patient endurance the immeasurable love of Christ was made manifest. For through the living the dead were made alive; and the Witnesses conferred favours on those who were not Witnesses, and the Virgin Mother had much joy in receiving back alive those whom she had given up as dead abortions. For through the Witnesses the greater number of those who had denied returned, as it were, into their mother’s womb, and were conceived again and re-quickened; and they learned to confess. And being now restored to life, and having their spirits braced, they went up to the judgment-seat to be again questioned by the governor, while that God who wishes not the death of the sinner, but mercifully calls to repentance, put sweetness into their souls. This new examination took place because the Cæsar had given orders that the Witnesses should be punished, but that if any denied they should be set free. And as now was commencing here the fair, which is attendee by vast numbers of men assembling from all nations, he brought the blessed up to the judgment-seat, exhibiting them as a theatrical show and spectacle to the mobs. Wherefore also he again questioned them, and whoever appeared to have had the rights of Roman citizenship he beheaded, and the rest he sent to the wild beasts.