d in just wrath you slew him. Who made you, O Basil, his judge
and his executioner?'

'Father, I seek not to excuse my sin.'

'It is well. And what penance will you lay upon yourself?'

Utterly subdued by awe, oblivious of his own will in the presence of
one so much more powerful, Basil murmured that whatever penance the man
of God saw fit to impose that would he perform.

'Nay,' said Benedict gently, 'that is too like presumption. Say rather,
you would endeavour to perform it. I will believe that if I bade you
fast long, or repeat many prayers, you would punctually obey me. But
what if I demanded of you that against which not only your flesh, but
all the motive of your life, rebelled? It were not too much; yet dare
you promise to achieve it?'

Basil looked up fearfully, and answered with tremulous lips:

'Not in my own strength; but perchance with the help of God.'

A grave smile passed over Benedict's countenance.

'It is well, my son; again, it is well. Come now, and let us reason of
this your sin. You avow to me that God and His commands have ever been
little in your mind, whereas you have thought much of this world and
its governance. I might ask you how it is possible to reflect on the
weal and woe of human kind without taking count of Him who made the
world and rules it; but let me approach you with a narrower inquiry.
You tell me that you love your country, and desire its peace. How comes
it, then, that you are numbered with the violent, the lawless, with
those who renounce their citizenship and dishonour the State? Could not
all your worldly meditations preserve you from so gross an incoherence
of thought and action?'

'Indeed, it should have done.'

'And would, perchance, had not your spleen overcome your reason. Why,
that is the case, O Basil, of all but every man who this day calls
himself a Roman citizen. Therefore is it that Italy lies under the
wrath of the Most High. Therefore is it that Rome has fallen, and that
the breath of pestilence, the sword of the destroyer, yea, earthquake
and flood and famine, desolate the land. Yet you here find little time,
my son, to meditate the laws of God, being so busied for the welfare of
men. Methinks your story has aimed a little wide.'

Basil bent low before this gentle irony, which softened his heart. The
abbot mused a moment, gazing upon the golden cross.

'In the days of old,' he continued, 'Romans knew how to subdue their
own desires to the good of