ts and monks than over men who live in the world. All
through my life the demon of lust has tempted me in various ways, but
his strongest temptations did not come to me from meeting a woman,
however beautiful and fragrant she was. They came to me from the image
of an absent woman. Even now, though full of days and approaching my
ninety-eighth year, I am often led by the Enemy to sin against chastity,
at least in thought. At night when I am cold in my bed and my frozen
old bones rattle together with a dull sound I hear voices reciting the
second verse of the third Book of the Kings: 'Wherefore his servants
said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin:
and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her
lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat,' and the devil
shows me a girl in the bloom of youth who says to me: 'I am thy Abishag;
I am thy Shunamite. Make, O my lord, room for me in thy couch.'

"Believe me," added the old man, "it is only by the special aid of
Heaven that a monk can keep his chastity in act and in intention."

Applying himself immediately to restore innocence and peace to the
monastery, he corrected the calendar according to the calculations of
chronology and astronomy and he compelled all the monks to accept his
decision; he sent the women who had declined from St. Bridget's rule
back to their convent; but far from driving them away brutally, he
caused them to be led to their boat with singing of psalms and litanies.

"Let us respect in them," he said, "the daughters of Bridget and the
betrothed of the Lord. Let us beware lest we imitate the Pharisees who
affect to despise sinners. The sin of these women and not their persons
should be abased, and they should be made ashamed of what they have done
and not of what they are, for they are all creatures of God."

And the holy man exhorted his monks to obey faithfully the rule of their
order.

"When it does not yield to the rudder," said he to them, "the ship
yields to the rock."

III. THE TEMPTATION OF SAINT MAEL

The blessed Mael had scarcely restored order in the Abbey of Yvern
before he learned that the inhabitants of the island of Hoedic, his
first catechumens and the dearest of all to his heart, had returned to
paganism, and that they were hanging crowns of flowers and fillets of
wool to the branches of the sacred fig-tree.

The boatman who brought this sad news expressed a fear tha