St. Martin having quitted the camp, went to St. Hiliary, Bishop of Poitviews in the year 353 A.D.
Bishop Hiliary soon became aquainted with the saint's extraordinary merit and ordained him exorcist.
Martin asked permission to visit his parents in Pannonia.
While crossing the Alps he fell into the hands of a company of robbers.
One of the lifted his sword over Martin's head to kill him; but another held his arm.
The robbers admired his modesty and intrepidy and asked him if he was not struck with fear at the sight of a sword lifted to kill him.
Martin answered that he was a christian, and that he knew divine goodness is always most ready to protect us in life and death
and is never more present to us than in the greatest dangers. The robbers admired this courage and confidence in God.
The one who attempted to kill him became a Christian and entered a monastary.
During the jouney Martin converted his mother while his father remained a pagan.
The artist who created this artwork for St. Martin's signed it BAMorano.
Click on the image at right for an image of greater detail. Note that the image with greater detail
was scanned at 300 dots per inch of resolution which is much greater than the 75 dots per inch resolution
of the pictured image.
The pictured image is approximately 85-100KB in size, whereas the image with greater detail is approximately 2-3MB
in size (as a compressed file).
