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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
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