him," said the young man. "Him first and then
Gelasius, and Psoes, and Dulas, and any more of the penitents that you
can find. They must all go to the castle by the ravine. Now I will go
to my father; you hurry on and show that you are to be trusted." As he
spoke he put his arm round her waist, but she slipped shyly away, and
calling out, "I will take them all the message," she hurried off.

In front of the cave where she had hoped to meet with Paulus she found
Sirona; she did not stop with her, but contented herself with laughing
wildly and calling out words of abuse.

Guided by the idea that she should find the Alexandrian at the nearest
well, she went on and called him, then hurrying on from cave to cave she
delivered her message in Hermas' name, happy to serve him.

CHAPTER XX.

They were all collected behind the rough wall on the edge of the
ravine-the strange men who had turned their back on life with all its
joys and pails, its duties and its delights, on the community and family
to which they belonged, and had fled to the desert, there to strive for
a prize above and beyond this life, when they had of their own free-will
renounced all other effort. In the voiceless desert, far from the
enticing echoes of the world, it might be easy to kill every sensual
impulse, to throw off the fetters of the world, and so bring that
humanity, which was bound to the dust through sin and the flesh, nearer
to the pure and incorporate being of the Divinity.

All these men were Christians, and, like the Saviour who had freely
taken torments upon Himself to become the Redeemer, they too sought
through the purifying power of suffering to free themselves from the
dross of their impure human nature, and by severe penance to contribute
their share of atonement for their own guilt, and for that of all their
race. No fear of persecution had driven them into the desert--nothing
but the hope of gaining the hardest of victories.

All the anchorites who had been summoned to the tower were Egyptians and
Syrians, and among the former particularly there were many who, being
already inured to abstinence and penance in the service of the old gods
in their own country, now as Christians had selected as the scene of
their pious exercises the very spot where the Lord must have revealed
Himself to his elect.

At a later date not merely Sinai itself but the whole tract of Arabia
Petraea--through which, as it was said, the Jews at their exo