So Martin would not visit the place
nor allow the people to do so; but went forth one day
with a few brethren and stood at the tomb,
praying the Almighty God that He would reveal concerning the man
what he had really been or of what merit,
he who was buried there and had been venerated until then.
Then the bishop looked on his left side,
and saw there standing a horrid shade,
who said that he had been slain for theft,
and abode in torment, not in glory with martyrs,
and that he was wrongfully venerated by the people.
It was wondrous, nevertheless, that all who were there
heard him clearly, but they saw him not
save Martin only, who told it to them all.
Then he bade forthwith remove the altar from the place,
and delivered the people from the false error.
IX. Again on a certain occasion Martin was travelling
in his diocese, when they bare there a corpse
of a heathen man, in order to bury him.
Then Martin beheld the heathen men from afar,
and supposed that they were superstitiously bearing,
even as their wont was, their idol throughout the land,
and he made the sign of the cross in the direction of the people,
and bade them, in God's name, carry it no further
but lay down the burthen, and the bearers at once
stood still in the place, as if they had been stiffened.
Then he who was at hand might wonder
how the poor bearers, thus bound to the earth,
turned them about, and wished to go forward;
but when they could not stir from the ground,
they set down the corpse and looked each on the other,
