sent by the Lord!"
Benedetto whispered to him:

"It is not what you think."

Having controlled his feelings, he begged the master to sit down upon a
ruined wall, against which he himself--kneeling on the grass--rested his
folded arms.

"Since this morning," said he, "I have been warned by certain signs that
the Lord's will concerning me is changed; but I have not been able to
understand in what way. You know what happened to me three years ago in
that little church where I was praying, while my poor wife lay dying?"

"You allude to your vision?"

"No; before the vision--having closed my eyes--I read on my eyelids the
words of Martha: '_Magister adest et vocat te!_' This morning, while you
were saying Mass, I saw the same words within me. I believed this to be
an automatic revulsion of memory. After the communion I had a moment of
anxiety, for it seemed to me Christ was saying in my soul: 'Dost thou
not understand, dost thou not understand, dost thou not understand?' I
passed the day in a state of continual agitation, although I strove
to tire myself more than usual in the garden. In the afternoon I sat
reading a short time under the ilex tree, where the Fathers congregate.
I had St. Augustine's _De Opere Monachorum_. Some people passed on the
upper road, talking in loud voices. I raised my head mechanically. Then,
I cannot tell why, but instead of resuming my reading, I closed the book
and fell to thinking. I thought of what St. Augustine says about manual
labour for monks, I thought of the order of St. Benedict, of Rance, and
of how the Benedictine order might again return to manual labour. Then,
in a moment of weariness, but with my heart still full of the immense
grandeur of St. Augustine, I believed I heard a voice from the upper
world crying: '_Magister adest et vocat te!_' Perhaps it was only an
hallucination, only because of St. Augustine, only some unconscious
memory of the '_Tolle, lege_'; I do not deny this, but, nevertheless, I
trembled, trembled like a leaf. And I asked myself fearfully, Does the
Lord wish me to become a monk? You know, _Padre mio_--I have repeated it
to you on two or three occasions--that in one particular, at least, this
would correspond with the end of my vision. But when you counselled me,
as did also Don Giuseppe Flores, not to put faith in this vision, I told
you that, to me, another reason for not putting faith in it was that
I do not feel myself worthy to be a priest, and, furth