anquillity on earth and eternal happiness hereafter;
but his will did not ally itself with his intellect. Moreover, was it
certain, he asked himself, that all who embraced the religious life
were so rewarded? In turning the pages of Augustine's work, he had come
upon a passage which arrested his eye and perturbed his thought, a
passage which seemed clearly to intimate that the soul's eternal
destiny had from the beginning of things been decided by God, some men
being created for bliss, more for damnation. Basil did not dwell
profoundly on this doubt; his nature inclined not at all to theological
scrutiny, nor to spiritual brooding; but it helped to revive in him the
energies which sickness had abated, and to throw him back on that
simple faith, that Christianity of everyday, in which he had grown up.

Going forth in the mellow sunshine, he turned his steps to a garden of
vegetables where he saw monks at work. They gave him gentle greeting,
and one, he who had brought the volume yesterday, announced that the
abbot invited Basil to visit him after the office of the third hour.
Thereupon all worked in silence, he watching them.

When the time came, he was conducted to the abbot's dwelling, which was
the tower beside the ancient gateway of the Arx. It contained but two
rooms, one above the other; below, the founder of the monastery studied
and transacted business; in the upper chamber he prayed and slept.
When, in reply to his knock at the study door, the voice, now familiar,
but for that no less impressive, bade him come forward, Basil felt his
heart beat quickly; and when he stood alone in that venerable presence,
all his new-born self-confidence fell away from him. Beholding the aged
man seated at a table on which lay books, amid perfect stillness, in
the light from a large window; before him a golden cross, and, on
either side of it, a bowl of sweet-scented flowers; he seemed only now
to remember that this was that Benedict whose fame had gone forth into
many lands, whose holiness already numbered him with the blessed saints
rather than with mortal men, of whom were recounted things miraculous.
Looking upon that face, which time touched only to enhance its calm,
only to make yet purer its sweet humanity, he felt himself an idle and
wanton child, and his entrance hither a profanation.

'Come and sit by me, son Basil,' said the abbot. 'I am at leisure, and
shall be glad to hear you speak of many things. Tell me first, do