continued to pray and weep among
them without intermission, and though he was often beaten and
ill-treated, and thrice banished by them, he always returned with the
same zeal. After three years the infidels were overcome by his meekness
and patience, and being touched by an extraordinary grace, all demanded
baptism. He stayed one year longer with them to instruct them in the
faith; and on their being supplied with priests and other ministers, he
went back to his cell.

His brother dying soon after his return thither, left an only daughter,
called Mary, whom the saint undertook to train up in a religious life.
For this purpose he placed her in a cell near his own, where, by the
help of his instructions, she became eminent for her piety and penance.
At the end of twenty years she was unhappily seduced by a wolf in
sheep's clothing, a wicked monk, who resorted often to the place under
color of receiving advice from her uncle. Hereupon falling into despair,
she went to a distant town, where she gave herself up to the most
criminal disorders. The saint ceased not for two years to weep and pray
for her conversion. Being then informed where she dwelt, he dressed
himself like a citizen of that town, and going to the inn where she
lived in the pursuit of her evil courses, desired her company with him
at supper. When he saw her alone, he took off his cap which disguised
him, and with many tears said to her: "Daughter Mary, don't you know me?
What is now become of your angelical habit, of your tears and watchings
in the divine praises?" &c.

Seeing her struck and filled with horror and confusion, he tenderly
encouraged her and comforted her, saying that he would take her sins
upon himself if she would faithfully follow his advice, and that his
friend Ephrem also prayed and wept for her. She with many tears returned
him her most hearty thanks, and promised to obey in all things his
injunctions. He set her on his horse, and led the beast himself on foot.
In this manner he conducted her back to his desert, and shut her up in a
cell behind his own. {596} There she spent the remaining fifteen years
of her life in continual tears and the most perfect practices of penance
and other virtues. Almighty God was pleased, within three years after
her conversion, to favor her with the gift of working miracles by her
prayers. And as soon as she was dead, "her countenance appeared to us,"
says St. Ephrem, "so shining, that we understood that cho