to be a monk," was the answer.

"You cannot be a monk here," said Palemon. "It is a hard thing to be a
true monk, and there few who persevere."

"Perhaps so," replied Pachomius; "but all people are not alike."

"I have already told you," repeated the old man, "that you cannot be a
monk here. Go elsewhere and try; if you persevere you can come back."

"I would rather stay with you," said Pachomius.

"You do not know what you are asking," answered Palemon. "I live on
bread and salt; I pray and do penance the greater part of the
night--sometimes the whole night through."

Pachomius shivered, for he was a sound sleeper, but he replied
sturdily enough:

"I hope in Jesus Christ that, helped by your prayers, I shall
persevere."

Palemon could resist him no longer. He took the young man to live with
him and found him a humble and faithful disciple. After some years,
the two hermits went together to the desert of the Thebaid and began
the work to which God had called Pachomius, for Palemon died soon
after.

Many monasteries were founded, and men flocked to the desert to give
themselves to God. They slept on the bare ground, fasted continually
and cultivated the barren earth or made baskets and mats of the coarse
reeds that grew in the marshes, selling them for the profit of the
poor. Twice during the night the weird blast of the horn that summoned
them to prayer broke the vast silence of the desert.

Hearing of the arrival of Athanasius, Pachomius came down from his
lonely monastery of Tabenna, surrounded by his monks; but he hid
himself among them from humility, or from the fear that Athanasius
would do him too much honor. The Saint, however, detected the Saint,
and they were soon firm friends. To the Patriarch, the monks of Egypt
represented all that was best and strongest in the national spirit. On
these men he knew he could rely, and his hopes were not disappointed.
The solitaries of the desert, to a man, would be faithful to
Athanasius during the years of trial that followed.

Indeed, wherever Athanasius went throughout his vast diocese, the
hearts of all loyal and noble men went out to him instinctively. He
was a precious gift of God to Egypt--a precious gift of God to the
whole Catholic Church.

Chapter 5
FALSE WITNESSES

THE storm of persecution which was to fall with such fury upon St.
Athanasius was already gathering.

Constantia, the Emperor's favorite sister, who had always been
strongly in