nt life is a life of years--long years,
and many years.

From within comes much that renders men sinful and impure. He
fully realized the truth of this. What flames arose up in him at
times! What a source of evil, of that which we would not, welled up
continually! He mortified his body, but the evil came from within.

One day, after the lapse of many years, he met Angelo, who
recognized him.

"Man!" exclaimed Angelo. "Yes, it is thou! Art thou happy now?
Thou hast sinned against God, and cast away His boon from thee--hast
neglected thy mission in this world! Read the parable of the intrusted
talent! The MASTER, who spoke that parable, spoke the truth! What hast
thou gained? What hast thou found? Dost thou not fashion for thyself a
religion and a dreamy life after thine own idea, as almost all do?
Suppose all this is a dream, a fair delusion!"

"Get thee away from me, Satan!" said the monk; and he quitted
Angelo.

"There is a devil, a personal devil! This day I have seen him!"
said the monk to himself. "Once I extended a finger to him, and he
took my whole hand. But now," he sighed, "the evil is within me, and
it is in yonder man; but it does not bow him down; he goes abroad with
head erect, and enjoys his comfort; and I grasped at comfort in the
consolations of religion. If it were nothing but a consolation?
Supposing everything here were, like the world I have quitted, only
a beautiful fancy, a delusion like the beauty of the evening clouds,
like the misty blue of the distant hills!--when you approach them,
they are very different! O eternity! Thou actest like the great calm
ocean, that beckons us, and fills us with expectation--and when we
embark upon thee, we sink, disappear, and cease to be. Delusion!
away with it! begone!"

And tearless, but sunk in bitter reflection, he sat upon his
hard couch, and then knelt down--before whom? Before the stone cross
fastened to the wall? No, it was only habit that made him take this
position.

The more deeply he looked into his own heart, the blacker did
the darkness seem. "Nothing within, nothing without--this life
squandered and cast away!" And this thought rolled and grew like a
snowball, until it seemed to crush him.

"I can confide my griefs to none. I may speak to none of the
gnawing worm within. My secret is my prisoner; if I let the captive
escape, I shall be his!"

And the godlike power that dwelt within him suffered and strove.

"O Lord, my Lord!" he cr