and he could not break out by reason of the burning.
Then he bethought himself, and saw that he could not
escape from the fire by any mode of flight,
but through God's power he might overcome it.
Then he left the door, and in the midst of the flame
cried to the Almighty God with single mind
and continued steadfast in the peril;
and therewith there was wrought a great wonder by God's help,
so that the fire bent from him on either side,
and he remained undismayed in the midst of the burning,
through the Lord's might, as if he were in dew.
Then his monks were aroused by the fire
where they lay; and when they saw the flame
and broke open the doors and parted the fire,
and dragged Martin from the midst of the flame,
they thought that he had verily been burned alive
in so long a burning, when the crackling fire
aroused them from sleep; and he said afterward
that he had felt the burning of the fire about him
so long as he strove with the bolts of the doors;
but as soon as he crossed himself and prayed to God,
all the flame about him bent away,
and it seemed to him as if he were in a pleasant dew.
He said also very often with inward groaning
that the wily devil had well nigh deceived him,
when he was so suddenly shaken out of sleep
that he did not know the wisdom of at once praying,
but too late began to beseech God
that He would deliver him from the peril of the fire.
By this he who readeth this book may understand
that Martin was not tempted to his destruction
through that great peril, but was tried
even as the Apostle Paul said in his epistle,
that he himself abode in the midst of the sea-depths
a day and a night unharmed, by God's help.
