HIS example was a perpetual and a most moving sermon, and his very
countenance inspired all who beheld him with the love of virtue. He took
nourishment but once in four days, but would not allow any of his monks
to pass above two days without eating. He prescribed them mortifications
of each sense in particular, but made perpetual prayer his chief rule,
ordering them to implore the divine mercy in their hearts, in whatever
labor their hands were employed. While Ammianus, who had resigned to him
the government of the abbey, was one day reading aloud, out of the
scriptures, for their mutual edification, Eusebius happened to cast his
eye on certain laborers in the field where they sat, so as not to give
due attention to the lecture: to punish himself for this slight fault,
he put on, and wore till his death, for above forty years, a heavy iron
collar about his neck, fastened by a stiff chain to a great iron girdle
about his middle, so that he could only look downwards under his feet:
and he never afterwards stirred out of his cell but by a narrow passage
from his cell to the chapel. His sanctity drew many disciples to him. He
flourished in the fourth century. See Theodoret Philoth. c. 4. Item
Hist. Eccles. l. 4, c. 28.