II.

Now while the land of the Indians lay under the shroud of this moonless

night, and while the Faithful were harried on every side, and the

champions of ungodliness prospered, the very air reeking with the smell

of bloody sacrifices, a certain mall of the royal household, chief

satrap in rank, in courage, stature, comeliness, and in all those

qualities which mark beauty of body and nobility of soul, far above all

his Fellows, hearing of this iniquitous decree, bade farewell to all

the grovelling pomps and vanities of the world, joined the ranks of the

monks, and retired across the border into the desert. There, by

fastings and vigils, and by diligent study of the divine oracles, he

throughly purged his senses, and illumined a soul, set free from every

passion, with the glorious light of a perfect calm.

But when the king, who loved and esteemed him highly, heard thereof, he

was grieved in spirit at the loss of his friend, but his anger was the

more hotly kindled against the monks. And so he sent everywhere in

search of him, leaving "no stone unturned," as the saying is, to find

him. After a long while, they that were sent in quest of him, having

learnt that he abode in the desert, after diligent search, apprehended

him and brought him before the king's judgement seat. When the king

saw him in such vile and coarse raiment who before had been clad in

rich apparel,--saw him, who had lived in the lap of luxury, shrunken

and wasted by the severe practice of discipline, and bearing about in

his body outward and visible signs of his hermit-life, he was filled

with mingled grief and fury, and, in speech blended of these two

passions, he spake unto him thus:

"O thou dullard and mad man, wherefore hast thou exchanged thine honour

for shame, and thy glorious estate for this unseemly show? To what end

hath the president of my kingdom, and chief commander of my realm made

himself the laughingstock of boys, and not only forgotten utterly our

friendship and fellowship, but revolted against nature herself, and had

no pity on his own children, and cared naught for riches and all the

splendour of the world, and chosen ignominy such as this rather than

the glory that men covet? And what shall it profit thee to have chosen

above all gods and men him whom they call Jesus, and to have preferred

this rough life of sackcloth to the pleasures and delights of a life of

bliss."

When the man of God heard these words, he made reply, at once courteous

and unruffled: "If it be thy pleasure, O king, to converse with me,

remove thine enemies out of mid court; which done, I will answer thee

concerning whatsoever thou mayest desire to learn; for while these are

here, I cannot speak with thee. But, without speech, torment me, kill

me, do as thou wilt, for "the world is crucified unto me, and I unto

the world,' as saith my divine teacher." The king said, "And who are

these enemies whom thou biddest me turn out of court?" The saintly man

answered and said, "Anger and Desire. For at the beginning these twain

were brought into being by the Creator to be fellow-workers with

nature; and such they still are to those 'who walk not after the flesh

but after the Spirit.' But in you who are altogether carnal, having

nothing of the Spirit, they are adversaries, and play the part of

enemies and foemen. For Desire, working in you, stirreth up pleasure,

but, when made of none effect, Anger. To-day therefore let these be

banished from thee, and let Wisdom and Righteousness sit to hear and

judge that which we say. For if thou put Anger and Desire out of

court, and in their room bring in Wisdom and Righteousness, I will

truthfully tell thee all." Then spake the king, "Lo I yield to thy

request, and will banish out of the assembly both Desire and Anger, and

make Wisdom and Righteousness to sit between us. So now, tell me

without fear, how wast thou so greatly taken with this error, to prefer

the bird in the bush to the bird already in the hand?"

The hermit answered and said, "O king, if thou askest the cause how I

came to despise things temporal, and to devote my whole self to the

hope of things eternal, hearken unto me. In former days, when I was

still but a stripling, I heard a certain good and wholesome saying,

which, by its three took my soul by storm; and the remembrance of it,

like some divine seed, being planted in my heart, unmoved, was

preserved ever until it took root, blossomed, and bare that fruit which

thou seest in me. Now the meaning of that sentence was this: 'It

seemed good to the foolish to despise the things that are, as though

they were not, and to cleave and cling to the things that are not, as

though they were. So he, that hath never tasted the sweetness of the

things that are, will not be able to understand the nature of the

things that are not. And never having understood them, how shall he

despise them?' Now that saying meant by 'things that are' the things

eternal and fixed, but by 'things that are not' earthly life, luxury,

the prosperity that deceives, whereon, O king, thine heart alas! is

fixed amiss. Time was when I also clung thereto myself. But the force

of that sentence continually goading my heart, stirred my governing

power, my mind, to make the better choice. But 'the law of sin,

warring against the law of my mind,' and binding me, as with iron

chains, held me captive to the love of things present.

"But 'after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour' was pleased

to deliver me from that harsh captivity, he enabled my mind to overcome

the law of sin, and opened mine eyes to discern good from evil.

Thereupon I perceived and looked, and behold! all things present are

vanity and vexation of spirit, as somewhere in his writings saith

Solomon the wise. Then was the veil of sin lifted from mine heart, and

the dullness, proceeding from the grossness of my body, which pressed

upon my soul, was scattered, and I perceived the end for which I was

created, and how that it behoved me to move upward to my Creator by the

keeping of his Commandments. Wherefore I left all and followed him,

and I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord that he delivered me out

of the mire, and from the making of bricks, and from the harsh and

deadly ruler of the darkness of this world, and that he showed me the

short and easy road whereby I shall be able, in this earthen body,

eagerly to embrace the Angelic life. Seeking to attain to it the

sooner, I chose to walk the strait and narrow way, renouncing the

vanity of things present and the unstable changes and chances thereof,

and refusing to call anything good except the true good, from which

thou, O king, art miserably sundered and alienated. Wherefore also we

ourselves were alienated and separated from thee, because thou wert

falling into plain and manifest destruction, and wouldst constrain us

also to descend into like peril. But as long as we were tried in the

warfare of this world, we failed in no point of duty. Thou thyself

will bear me witness that we were never charged with sloth or

heedlessness.

"But when thou hast endeavoured to rob us of the chiefest of all

blessings, our religion, and to deprive us of God, the worst of

deprivations, and, in this intent, dost remind us of past honours and

preferments, how should I not rightly tax thee with ignorance of good,

seeing that thou dost at all compare these two things, righteousness

toward God, and human friendship, and glory, that runneth away like

water? And how, in such ease, may we have fellowship with thee, and

not the rather deny ourselves friendship and honours and love of

children, and if there be any other tie greater than these? When we

see thee, O king, the rather forgetting thy reverence toward that God,

who giveth thee the power to live and breathe, Christ Jesus, the Lord

of all; who, being alike without beginning, and coeternal with the

Father, and having created the heavens and the earth by his word, made

man with his own hands and endowed him with immortality, and set him

king of all on earth and assigned him Paradise, the fairest place of

all, as his royal dwelling. But man, beguiled by envy, and (wo is me!)

caught by the bait of pleasure, miserably fell from all these

blessings. So he that once was enviable became a piteous spectacle,

and by his misfortune deserving of tears. Wherefore he, that had made

and fashioned us, looked again with eyes of compassion upon the work of

his own hands. He, not laying aside his God-head, which he had from

the beginning, was made man for our sakes, like ourselves, but without

sin, and was content to suffer death upon the Cross. He overthrew the

foeman that from the beginning had looked with malice on our race; he

rescued us from that bitter captivity; he, of his goodness, restored to

us our former freedom, and, of his tender love towards mankind, raised

us up again to that place from whence by our disobedience we had

fallen, granting us even greater honour than at the first.

"Him therefore, who endured such sufferings for our sakes, and again

bestowed such blessings upon us, him dost thou reject and scoff at his

Cross? And, thyself wholly riveted to carnal delights and deadly

passions, dost thou proclaim the idols of shame and dishonour gods?

Not only hast thou alienated thyself from the commonwealth of heavenly

felicity but thou hast also severed from the same all others who obey

thy commands, to the peril of their souls. Know therefore that I will

not obey thee, nor join thee in such ingratitude to God-ward; neither

will I deny my benefactor and Saviour, though thou slay me by wild

beasts, or give me to the fire and sword, as thou hast the power. For I

neither fear death, nor desire the present world, having passed

judgement on the frailty and vanity thereof. For what is there

profitable, abiding or stable therein? Nay, in very existence, great

is the misery, great the pain, great and ceaseless the attendant care.

Of its gladness and enjoyment the yoke-fellows are dejection and pain.

Its riches is poverty; its loftiness die lowest humiliation; and who

shall tell the full tale of its miseries, which Saint John the Divine

hath shown me in few words? For he saith, 'The whole world lieth in

wickedness'; and, 'Love not the world, neither the things that are in

the world. For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and

the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And the world passeth

away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth

for ever.' Seeking, then, this good will of God, I have forsaken

everything, and joined myself to those who possess the same desire, and

seek after the same God. Amongst these there is no strife or envy,

sorrow or care, but all run the like race that they may obtain those

everlasting habitations which the Father of lights hath prepared for

them that love him. Them have I gained for my fathers, my brothers, my

friends and mine acquaintances. But from my former friends and

brethren 'I have got me away far off, and lodged in the wilderness'

waiting for the God, who saveth me from faintness of spirit, and from

the stormy tempest."

When the man of God had made answer thus gently and in good reason, the

king was stirred by anger, and was minded cruelly to torment the saint;

but again he hesitated and delayed, regarding his venerable and noble

mien. So he answered and said:

"Unhappy man, that hast contrived thine own utter ruin, driven thereto,

I ween, by fate, surely thou hast made thy tongue as sharp as thy wits.

Hence thou hast uttered these vain and ambiguous babblings. Had I not

promised, at the beginning of our converse, to banish Anger from mid

court, I had now given thy body to be burned. But since thou hast

prevented and tied me down fast by my words, I bear with thine

effrontery, by reason of my former friendship with thee. Now, arise,

and flee for ever from my sight, lest I see thee again and miserably

destroy thee."

So the man of God went out and withdrew to the desert, grieved to have

lost the crown of martyrdom, but daily a martyr in his conscience, and

'wrestling against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the

darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness'; as saith Blessed

Paul. But after his departure, the king waxed yet more wroth, and

devised a yet fiercer persecution of the monastic order, while treating

with greater honour the ministers and temple-keepers of his idols.

While the king was under this terrible delusion and error, there was

born unto him a son, a right goodly child, whose beauty from his very

birth was prophetic of his future fortunes. Nowhere in that land, they

said, had there ever been seen so charming and lovely a babe. Full of

the keenest joy at the birth of the child, the king called him Ioasaph,

and in his folly went in person to the temples of his idols, for to do

sacrifice and offer hymns of praise to his still more foolish gods,

unaware of the real giver of all good things, to whom he should have

offered the spiritual sacrifice. He then, ascribing the cause Of his

son's birth to things lifeless and dumb, sent out into all quarters to

gather the people together to celebrate his son's birth-day: and thou

mightest have seen all the folk running together for fear of the king,

and bringing their offerings ready for the sacrifice, according to the

store at each man's hand, and his favour toward his lord. But chiefly

the king stirred them up to emulation. He brought full many oxen, of

goodly size, for sacrifice, and thus, making a feast for all his

people, he bestowed largesses on all his counsellors and officers, and

on all his soldiers, and all the poor, and men of low degree.