In God's Word we find a statement by the beloved St. John concerning answered prayer" "The things we ask we receive of Him because we keep His commandments and do those things pleasing in His sight."

One man said, "If anyone else is getting more answered prayers than I am, I shall study that man's like and find out how he does it."

I have never read of a miracle being attributed to St. Augustine nor one performed by Damasus, but the life of St. Martin of Tours and that of St. Ambrose of Milan have these wonderful signs of the believer following them. They laid hands on the sick and they recovered, they cast out devils and raised the dead, etc.

St. Martin's spiritual life started with a miracle. He was one cold night and saw a beggar (with no coat) so he gave him part of his coat. That night Jesus appeared to Martin dressed in the part of the coat he had given to the beggar. This proved to Martin that inasmuch as he had done it to one of the least of these he had done it unto Jesus. This Divine Afflatus put this young man on the path to heaven and as he pressed forward to heaven and as he pressed forward to the prize of the high calling God gave him other divine revelations and urged him on to the way of holiness.

But there had to be a beginning, and this beginning was Martin's obedience to the great need of the beggar and the compassion of Christ working in his soul. He was taken under the 'wing' of a godly bishop of France named Hillary of Poitiers, and although he had been given a partial education in the Bible school of Padua, still St. Hillary helped him and encouraged him to press on.

Hillary was a man of letters and one of the great Doctors of the western church that was not under the influence of the first church at Rome.

He had the 'Gospel and Apostle' as guides and one writer of our day says that wherever the 'Gospel and Apostle' went (as the sole guide of the churches) miracles and signs followed the ministry.

In going west many times the journeys took the missionaries through brambles and swamps, but they thought so much of the Scriptures that they carried them on top of their heads lest they get ruined.

St. Martin was a Scriptural Christian.

Sulpicious Severus said that "Salvation was preached to the world, not by orators, but by fishermen," and St. Martin was a fisher of souls.

It was a great miracle that such a man as Hillary could become so humble that God could use him to carry on the gospel that 'fishermen' started.

It has always followed that the churches who went entirely by the written Word of God (in the Holy Scriptures) had the reward of miracles and healings following their ministry.

When Martin was well grounded in the pure faith he went back to Pannonia and was the means of converting his pagan mother and sister to the pure Gospel.

He brought his sister back to Tours with him and she married a deacon in a church in Britain and they worked for the Lord on the Bonny Banks of Clyde until they moved back to Brittany. It was about this time their son, Succat, (St. Patrick of Ireland) was kidnapped.

The name of St. Martin's sister was Conchessa and her husband was Calpurnius.

St. Martin was listed as the Arch Bishop of Tours. He was not canonized by the first church of Rome, but he was truly canonized by God, the same as St. Ambrose of Milan.

He built a monastery or school at Marmoutiers and from this school went great men like Pelagius and Coelestius of that famous missionary party that went to Rome in the years just preceding the sack of that city by Alaric, 410 A.D.

St. Martin also built a retreat (or monastery) on the banks of the river, Loire. Here he had time to be alone with God and intercede for the right and for power to go forward in the authority and name of Jesus.

We see the results of his praying and fasting in the many healings and miracles that followed his ministry.

On one occasion when he was demolishing a pagan shrine and was about to cut down the sacred tree standing near it, the pagans remonstrated. He said, "If I am not a man of God you can soon learn if you will tie me in the spot where this tree will fall." They worked with fervor and completed the task; but God made the tree twist as it fell and it landed on some of the workmen.

Martin was once called to a child that was dead. He stretched himself on the child and prayed and God restored life.

He went to the emperor at Treves, the western Capitol of the Roman world, and asked to be admitted. The Emperor knew this godly man had come to make him reverse some decision to kill some of the Holy Ghost Bishops who would not do as Pope Damasus demanded (according to the first Edict of Theodosius). At the request of the ungodly emperor's wife he would not admit St. Martin. This godly saint lay at the gate in prayer and fasting until the Lord of Creation told him to go in to the emperor. The gate swung open by itself and he walked straight in to the presence of the emperor who was not respectful to Martin. He would not rise in the presence of the godly bishop. But God sent a feeling of burning fire and it scorched the seat on which this proud man was sitting. He soon arose.

There were intrigues and false conceptions of the Church of the living God in those days, and bad men were always trying to promote the first church of Rome. Martin would have nothing to do with these, and were it not for the fact that he had such power with God, he too, would have been burned at the stake at the request of Damasus like many of his fellow bishops.

The Roman church had lost her Apostolic Power to heal and perform miracles. But such men as Ambrose and Priscillin and Martin kept so close to the pure Scriptural teachings that they had power with God.

The man made creeds of Rome had physical force and power at the hands of the pagan emperors but the First Roman Church had lost the office that Christ had given for the performance of His miracles.

St. Martin continued in the Apostolic doctrine. Jude said, "Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the Saints." This was what the missionaries (who carried the Scriptures wherever they went) continually worked to do. They contended in prayer and fashing and God gave them the desires of their hearts.

God's word says, "The things we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things pleasing in His sight." I am sure it did not please God to see Spanish bishops urge the burning of Priscillin and his Holy Ghost followers. I am sure it was not pleasing in God's sight to have the First Roman Church set statues in its church and make it like a Pagan Temple. God hated it.

Also, I am sure God saw when the Spanish bishops bore false witness against Priscillin because God/s Holy Commandments say, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

The First Roman Church under Damasus had broken fellowship with God in three things: 1. False witness, 2. Killing, 3. Lies.

St Martin stayed in God's holy presence so much that he was never harsh or upset in any situation.

One day a beggar came to him asking for a garment. He was busy in prayer, so he sent him to the Arch deacon. The beggar soon returned without a garment. The Arch deacon came in a very excited state and said, "The congregation of people have been waiting for you in the chapel." But Martin said calmly, "Please bring me a garment for the beggar." The deacon did not return soon so Martin took off his own garment and handed it to the beggar. The deacon returned with an inferior garment and threw it at the feet of this beloved saint who put it on and went in to the multitude of waiting people. All through the service a golden glory light rested on him.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful," and when He looked out on the multitude of hungry people, whom He fed with the two small fishes and five loaves of bread, "He was moved with compassion." No amount of preaching or church forms and ceremonies can substitute for the great compassion that the Holy Ghost gives the believer to minister His works and Word.

Martin's life was one constant miracle.

He traveled over three hundred miles of rough road to reach Treves, where Priscillin was accused of heresy by the Spanish bishops, Ithacius and Idacius. How many of us would either walk or travel on the back of an animal for that distance to save a life? He pled with the Emperor Maximus, "The Bishops have done nothing worthy of death." But Maximus was a "cat's paw" of Damasus - Pope of Rome.

Martin was much loved by the queen of Maximus, who became a Christian after she had seen and listened to this wonderful man of God. She was like the wife of Pontius Pilate, "Have thou nothing to do with these just men."

After Martim died, many who were sick touched his tomb and were healed.

His biographer, Sulpicious Severius, writes about him:

"Only the clerics, only the priests, know nothing of him, and not without reason, in their ill will disinclined to know him, inasmuch as they had become acquainted with his writings, they must have recognized their own vices. I shudder to state what I have lately heard, that a miserable man, (I know him not) said that I (Sulpicious Severius) have told many lies in that book of mine. This is not the voice of a man but of the devils; and it is not Martin who is in any way injured, but faith is taken from the gospels themselves. For since the Lord Himself testified of works of the kind which Martin accomplished, that they were to be performed by all the faithful, he who does not believe that Martin accomplished such deeds simply does not believe that Christ uttered such words. But the miserable, the degenerate, the somnolent are put to shame, that the things which they themselves cannot do, were done by him, and prefer to deny his virtues than to confess their own inertness."

Note: I went to Stanford library asking the attendant for a book on Bishop Martin. He went to the card file and as he took out Martin's card he looked at me and said, "He was not canonized."

"Not canonized by Rome - but by God," I thought.

It has been said, "It is not he that hath good gold, that is afraid to bring it to the touch stone, but he that hath the counterfeit.