nt to accommodate the spectators.

Into this circle of holy women came Jerome, the most learned and the
most brilliant man of his time. He was their equal in birth, and he,
like them, had disposed of his property in charity to the poor. He
became their friend, their teacher, their oracle. So assured was he of
his ascendency over his friends that he often gave his advice in a
manner which savored of arrogance.

In the year 385 Jerome bade farewell to these devoted friends and sailed
away to the land which was consecrated by the life and sufferings of
Christ. He desired retirement, in order that he might be free to
meditate and to prosecute his great work of translating the Scriptures.
From the ship in which the journey was made he addressed a letter to
Asella. It seems that slanderous tongues had foolishly assailed him in
regard to his friendship with those women whose attractions could not
have been other than spiritual. He admits that, of all the ladies of
Rome, one only had the power to subdue him, and that one was Paula. He
had been able to withstand countenances beautified both by nature and
also by art; with Paula alone, "who was squalid with dirt," and whose
eyes were dimmed with continual weeping, was his name associated.
Calumny on this subject was too absurd to be treated with seriousness.
The reference to Paula's personal untidiness gives us the occasion to
remark that, contrary to the generally accepted axiom regarding the
religious worth of cleanliness, those ancient nuns were taught to
believe that the bath was rather conducive to ungodliness. It was a
dangerous subserviency to the flesh: its eschewment was doubtless a
powerful safeguard to chastity.

Two years after the departure of their friend, Paula and Eustochium
gratified a wish which they had long cherished, to visit the Holy Land.
A most graphic picture of Paula leaving her children and friends is
given us in one of Jerome's letters. They realized, what was not,
perhaps, openly acknowledged, that it was a final good-bye. We are shown
the young girls clinging to their mother in the endeavor to dissuade her
from her purpose. But the sails are unfurled and the stout-armed rowers
are in their places; Rufina, a maiden just entering womanhood, with
quiet sobs, beseeches her mother to wait until she should be married. As
the vessel moves away, little Toxotius, the youngest-born and her only
son, stretches out his tiny hand and pleads with his mother to c