ith gave her an ascendant over the
sentiments of nature, and she even desired this cruel separation,
bearing it with joy, out of a pure and heroic love of God. She had
indeed taken a previous care to have all her children brought up saints;
otherwise her design would have been unjustifiable. Being therefore
fixed in her resolution, and having settled her affairs, she went to the
water side, attended by her brother, relations, friends, and children,
who all strove by their tears to overcome her constancy. Even when the
vessel was ready to sail, her little son Toxotius, with uplifted hands
on the shore, and bitterly weeping, begged her not to leave him. The
rest, who were not able to speak with gushing tears, prayed her to defer
at least her voluntary banishment. But Paula, raising her dry eyes to
heaven, turned her face from the shore, lest she should discover what
she could not behold without feeling the most sensible pangs of sorrow.
She sailed first to Cyprus, where she was detained ten days by St.
Epiphanius; and from thence to Syria. Her long journeys by land she
performed on the backs of asses; she, who till then had been accustomed
to be carried about by eunuchs in litters. She visited with great
devotion all the principal places which we read to have been consecrated
by the mysteries of the life of our divine Redeemer, as also the
respective abodes of all the principal anchorets and holy solitaries of
Egypt and Syria. At Jerusalem the proconsul had prepared a stately
palace richly furnished for her reception; but excusing herself with
regard {231} to the proffered favor, she chose to lodge in an humble
cell. In this holy place her fervor was redoubled at the sight of each
sacred monument, as St. Jerom describes. She prostrated herself before
the holy cross, pouring forth her soul in love and adoration, as if she
had beheld our Saviour still bleeding upon it. On entering the
sepulchre, she kissed the stone which she angel removed on the occasion
of our Lord's resurrection, and imparted many kisses full of faith and
devotion to the place where the body of Christ had been laid. On her
arrival at Bethlehem, she entered the cave or stable in which the
Saviour of the world was born, and she saluted the crib with tears of
joy, crying out; "I, a miserable sinner, am made worthy to kiss the
manger, in which my Lord was pleased to be laid an infant babe weeping
for me! This is my dwelling-place, because it was the country ch