n many sacred mysteries; but now, for twenty
years, I have brooded continually on the nature of the Logos. What is
your view upon that vital matter, brother Simon?"

"Surely," said the younger man, "there can be no question as to that.
The Logos is assuredly but a name used by St. John to signify the
Deity."

The old hermit gave a hoarse cry of fury, and his brown, withered face
was convulsed with anger. Seizing the huge cudgel which he kept to beat
off the wolves, he shook it murderously at his companion.

"Out with you! Out of my cell!" he cried. "Have I lived here so long to
have it polluted by a vile Trinitarian--a follower of the rascal
Athanasius? Wretched idolater, learn once for all, that the Logos is in
truth an emanation from the Deity, and in no sense equal or co-eternal
with Him! Out with you, I say, or I will dash out your brains with my
staff!"

It was useless to reason with the furious Arian, and Simon withdrew in
sadness and wonder, that at this extreme verge of the known earth the
spirit of religious strife should still break upon the peaceful solitude
of the wilderness. With hanging head and heavy heart he made his way
down the valley, and climbed up once more to his own cell, which lay at
the crown of the hill, with the intention of never again exchanging
visits with his Arian neighbour.

Here, for a year, dwelt Simon Melas, leading a life of solitude and
prayer. There was no reason why any one should ever come to this
outermost point of human habitation. Once a young Roman officer--Caius
Crassus--rode out a day's journey from Tyras, and climbed the hill to
have speech with the anchorite. He was of an equestrian family, and
still held his belief in the old dispensation. He looked with interest
and surprise, but also with some disgust, at the ascetic arrangements
of that humble abode.

"Whom do you please by living in such a fashion?" he asked.

"We show that our spirit is superior to our flesh," Simon answered. "If
we fare badly in this world, we believe that we shall reap an advantage
in the world to come."

The centurion shrugged his shoulders. "There are philosophers among our
people, Stoics and others, who have the same idea. When I was in the
Herulian Cohort of the Fourth Legion we were quartered in Rome itself,
and I saw much of the Christians, but I could never learn anything from
them which I had not heard from my own father, whom you, in your
arrogance, would call a Pagan. It is tru