n; and soon it was said that he was sick unto death, and he
lay stretched upon a bed of pain.

The convent Brother Ignatius visited him as a physician and a
friend, and brought him words of comfort, of religion, and spoke to
him of the peace and happiness of the church, of the sinfulness of
man, of rest and mercy to be found in heaven.

And the words fell like warm sunbeams upon a teeming soil. The
soil smoked and sent up clouds of mist, fantastic pictures, pictures
in which there was reality; and from these floating islands he
looked across at human life. He found it vanity and delusion--and
vanity and delusion it had been to him. They told him that art was a
sorcerer, betraying us to vanity and to earthly lusts; that we are
false to ourselves, unfaithful to our friends, unfaithful towards
Heaven; and that the serpent was always repeating within us, "Eat, and
thou shalt become as God."

And it appeared to him as if now, for the first time, he knew
himself, and had found the way that leads to truth and to peace. In
the church was the light and the brightness of God--in the monk's cell
he should find the rest through which the tree of human life might
grow on into eternity.

Brother Ignatius strengthened his longings, and the
determination became firm within him. A child of the world became a
servant of the church--the young artist renounced the world, and
retired into the cloister.

The brothers came forward affectionately to welcome him, and his
inauguration was as a Sunday feast. Heaven seemed to him to dwell in
the sunshine of the church, and to beam upon him from the holy
pictures and from the cross. And when, in the evening, at the sunset
hour, he stood in his little cell, and, opening the window, looked out
upon old Rome, upon the desolated temples, and the great dead
Coliseum--when he saw all this in its spring garb, when the acacias
bloomed, and the ivy was fresh, and roses burst forth everywhere,
and the citron and orange were in the height of their beauty, and
the palm trees waved their branches--then he felt a deeper emotion
than had ever yet thrilled through him. The quiet open Campagna spread
itself forth towards the blue snow-covered mountains, which seemed
to be painted in the air; all the outlines melting into each other,
breathing peace and beauty, floating, dreaming--and all appearing like
a dream!

Yes, this world was a dream, and the dream lasts for hours, and
may return for hours; but conve