d her, the
fault was his, and God would surely punish him. Thus did solitude
enervate his soul by frightening it, and the temptation he had hoped to
vanquish became the more strong and tyrannical.

He had tried reading. The Fathers told him that God allowed ascetics to
keep the keys of their nature in their own hands; that they had only to
think of woman as more bitter than death, and of her beauty as a cause of
perdition, and that if any woman's face tormented them they were to
picture it to the eye of the mind as old and wrinkled, defaced by
disease, and even the prey of the worm. He tried to think of Glory as the
Fathers directed, but when darkness fell and he lay on his bed, with the
first dream of the night the strong powers of Nature that had no mind to
surrender swept down the pitiful bulwarks of religion, and Glory was
smiling upon him in her youth, her beauty, her sweetness, her humour, and
all the grace of her countless gifts.

He had tried fasting. Three times a day Brother Andrew brought him his
food, and twice a day, when the lay brother had left him, he opened the
window and spread the food on the sill for the birds to take. But the
results of his fasting were the reverse of his expectations. At one
moment he was uplifted by strong emotions, at the next moment he was in
collapse. Visions began to pass before him. His father's face tormented
him constantly, and sometimes he was conscious of the face of his mother,
though he had never known her. But above all and through all there came
the face of Glory. Fasting had only extended his dreams about her. He was
dreaming both by day and by night now, and Glory was with him always.

He had tried prayer. Hitherto he had said his Offices regularly, but now
he would say special prayers as well. To get the victory over his lawless
and rebellious nature he would turn his eyes to the mother of the Lord.
But when he tried to fix his mind on Mary there was nothing to answer to
it. All was shadowy and impalpable. There was only a vague, empty cloud
before his eyes, until suddenly a luminous face glided into the vacant
place, and it was full of tenderness, of sweetness, of charm, of pity and
womanly love--but it was the face of Glory.

Despair laid hold of him. His attempts to overcome Nature were clearly
rejected by the Almighty. Winter passed with its foggy days. The Father
wished him to return to the ordinary life of the community, yet he begged
to be allowed to rema