Many wonderful things are told of the Abbot Spiridion, who lived a
hundred years and four and yet grew never old; neither was the
brightness of his eyes dimmed nor his hair silvered, nor was his frame
bowed and palsied with the weakness of age.
During the long years in which he ruled the abbey he had founded, he
seemed to live less in this world than in the communion of the blessed
souls of men redeemed. The whole earth was as clear to him as though
it had been of crystal, and when he raised his eyes he saw not solely
what other men saw, but the vision of all that is under the heavens.
And this vision of life was at once his trial and his consolation. For
it was an unspeakable sorrow and anguish to see on all sides the sin
and suffering and misery of creation, and often he wept bitterly when
no one dared ask him the reason of his affliction. Yet oftentimes, on
the other hand, he laughed for lightness of spirit, and bade the
brethren rejoice because of the salvation of some reprobate soul, or
the relief of one oppressed, or the bestowal of some blessing on the
servants of God.
When it happened that a brother had been sent on a journey and was long
absent, and the community was talking of him, wondering how he had
fared and where he might now be, the Abbot would sometimes break
silence and say: "I see our brother resting in such or such a cell," or
"Our brother is even now singing a psalm as he drifts in his small boat
of skins down this or that river," or, perchance, "Our brother is
coming over the hill and in an hour he will be with us."
In the abbey there was a certain lay-brother, dull and slow of wit,
with a hindrance in his speech; and one of the monks despised him and
scoffed at his defect of nature. This lay-brother had the care of the
garden of pot-herbs and fruit-trees, and as he was toiling there one
day the Abbot called the uncharitable monk to him, and said: "Come, let
us see what our brother the Fool is doing."
The monk trembled when he heard those words, for he knew that his
scornfulness had been discovered, and he followed the Abbot in great
confusion. In the garden they found the lay-brother planting cabbages.
"Is our brother the Fool alone?" asked the Abbot.
"Our brother is alone, father," replied the monk.
Then the Abbot touched the monk's eyes, and straightway he saw that the
lay-brother was not alone: beside him were two radiant child-angels,
one of whom held for him a basket containing the young plants, and the
second walked to and fro playing on a lute to lighten his labour.
Then, overwhelmed with shame, the monk fell on his knees, confessing
his sin and promising amendment.
More strange than this is the story I have now to tell. It happened
through mischance that fire broke out in the abbey, and the flames were
spreading so fiercely from one wattled cell to another that there was
great danger of the whole monastery being destroyed. With piteous
cries the religious surrounded the Abbot, and besought him to intercede
with God that their home might be spared.
Spiridion gently shook his head. "The mercy of God," he replied, "has
given it to another to intercede for us in our danger this day. The
holy Pontiff, Gregory, has looked out of Rome and seen us in our
trouble. At this moment he is kneeling in prayer for us, and his
supplication on our behalf will avail."
Even while Spiridion was speaking, the Pope, far away in the Golden
City, beheld the flames rising from the abbey, and called his household
to join him in entreating heaven; and at once it was seen that the
flames were being beaten to the ground and extinguished as though
invisible hands were beating them down with invisible branches of trees.
Now when the brethren were made aware that the whole earth was being
constantly shown thus in vision to the Abbot, they stood in sad dread
of him; even the most pure and lowly-hearted were abashed at this
thought that perchance every act and every vain fancy of theirs was
laid bare to his knowledge. So it came to pass that out of shame and
fear their hearts were little by little estranged from him.
The Abbot was not slow to perceive the change, and he spoke of it when
they met in chapter.
"Truly it is a grievous and a terrible thing," he said, "that any man
should see with the eyes of the soul more than it is given the eye of
flesh to see; and I pray you, brethren, beseech the Lord, if it be His
will, that the vision be withdrawn from me. But if His will it be not,
beseech Him that I may not sin through seeing. So much for myself, but
as for you, dear children, why are you grieved? Because it may be that
I see you when you think no man sees you? Am I then the only one who
sees you? Is there not at least one other--even the high God, from
whom the hidden man of the heart is nowise hidden? If you fear His
holy eyes, little need you fear the eyes of any sinful man."
Such a one was the Abbot Spiridion. His spirit passed from among men
in the hundred and fifth year of his exile, in the third month of the
year, on the morning of the resurrection of the Lord Christ, between
the white and the red of the morning, when the brethren were singing
prime. As he listened to them singing, his cheeks suddenly became
flushed with bright colour, and those who were about him, thinking he
was in pain, asked if in any way they might relieve him; but he replied
in a low voice, "When the heart is glad the face flowers." In a little
after that he laughed softly to himself, and so they knew that his end
was gladness.
When he died there were three hundred religious in that monastery, and
in his stead Samson was made Abbot of Gracedieu.
The body of Spiridion was laid in a stone coffin hard by the abbey
church, and to those who had known the holy man it seemed nothing
strange that the sick and afflicted should come and kneel by his grave,
in the hope that by his intercession they might obtain succour in their
misery. Certain it is that the blind were restored to sight, and the
sick to health, and the painful to great ease; and the fame of these
miracles was noised abroad in the world till thousands came in
pilgrimage to the spot, and costly gifts--gold and silver and jewels,
sheep and cattle, wine and corn, and even charters of large demesnes,
fruitful fields and woods and waters--were bestowed as thank-offerings
to the saintly man.
Then over his tomb rose a vast and beautiful minster, and the tomb
itself was covered with a shrine, brilliant with blue and vermilion and
gold and sculptured flowers, and guarded by angels with outspreading
wings.
At the beginning Abbot Samson was well pleased, for the great church
rose like a dream of heaven, but when he perceived that the constant
concourse of people was destroying the hushed contemplation and piety
of the house, and that the brethren were distracted with eagerness for
gain and luxury and the pride of life, he resolved to make an end.
Wherefore after High Mass on the Feast of All Saints he bade the
religious walk in procession to the splendid shrine, and there the
Abbot, with the shepherd's staff of rule in his hand, struck thrice on
the stone coffin, and three times he called aloud: "Spiridion!
Spiridion! Spiridion!" and begged him, as he had been founder and
first father of that monastery, to listen to the grievance which had
befallen them in consequence of the miracles he had wrought from his
grave.
And after an indignant recital of their loss of humility, of their
lukewarmness, of their desire for excitement and the pageants of the
world, of their lust for buildings of stone and pillared walks and
plentiful living, he concluded: "Make, then, we beseech thee, no sign
from thy sepulchre. Let life and death, and joy and sorrow, and
blindness and disease, and all the vicissitudes of this world follow
their natural courses. Do not thou, out of compassion for thy
fellow-man, interpose in the lawful succession of things. This is what
we ask of thee, expecting it of thy love. But if it be that thou deny
us, solemnly we declare unto thee, by the obedience which once we owed
thee, we shall unearth thy bones and cast them forth from amongst us."
Now whether it was that for some high purpose God delayed the answer to
that prayer, or whether it was the folly and superstition of men which
gave to things natural the likeness of the miraculous, and even
peradventure the folk lied out of a mistaken zeal for the glory of the
saints, there was no abatement of the wonders wrought at Spiridion's
tomb; and when the Abbot would have forbidden access to the vast crowds
of pilgrims, the people resisted with angry violence and threatened
fire and bloodshed.
So Samson summoned the wisest and holiest of the brotherhood, and took
them into counsel.
"This thing," said he, "cannot be of God, that one of His saints, the
founder of this house, should lead into sloth and luxury the children
of the house he has founded. Sooner could I believe that this is a
malignant snare of the most Evil One, who heals the bodily ailments of
a few that he may wreck the immortal souls of many."
Then arose Dom Walaric, the most aged of the monks, and said: "Already,
Father Abbot, hast thou spoken judgment. Grievously shall I lament
what must be done; but in one way only can we root out this corruption.
Let the bones of the holy man be unearthed and cast forth. He in the
high heavens will know that we do not use him despitefully, but that of
two evils this, indeed, is scarcely to be spoken of as an evil."
Wherefore, in a grassy bay of the land by the river a great pile of
faggots was reared, dry and quick for the touch of flame. And the
Abbot broke down the shrine and opened the tomb.
When the stone lid of the coffin had been lifted, the religious saw
that, though it had been long buried, the body showed no sign of decay.
Fresh and uncorrupted it lay in the sacred vestments; youthful and
comely of face, despite a marvellous old age and years of sepulture.
With many tears they raised what seemed rather a sleeping man than a
dead, and bore him to the river; and when they had heaped the faggots
about him, the Abbot blessed the body and the fuel, and with his own
hand set fire to the funeral pile.
The brethren restrained not their weeping and lamentation as they
witnessed that hallowed burning; and the Abbot, with heavy eyes,
tarried till the last ember had died out. Then were all the ashes of
the fire swept together and cast into the fleeting river, which bore
them through lands remote into the utmost sea that hath no outland
limit save the blue sky and the low light of the shifting stars.