nsual, could have saved it.

After studying in Constantinople and in Athens, the spirit of the
Reformers of his time took hold on Basil and, under the ascetic
impulse, he visited the hermits of Arabia and Asia Minor, hoping to
learn sanctity from them. He founded a convent in Pontus, which his
mother and sister entered. After his ordination as "Presbyter." he
was involved in the great Arian controversy, and the ability he
showed as a disputant probably had much to do with his promotion to
the bishopric of Caesarea. In meeting the responsibilities of that
office, his courage and eloquence made him famous. When threatened
by the Emperor Valens, he replied that having nothing but a few
books and his cloak, he did not fear confiscation of his goods; that
he could not be exiled, since the whole earth was the Lord's; that
torture and death would merely put an end to his labors and bring
him nearer to the God for whom he longed. He died at Caesarea
A. D. 379. Such men must be judged from their own standpoints. It is
worth much to understand them.

The sermon 'To the Fallen,' here used from Fish's translation, was
greatly admired by Fenelon, who calls it a masterpiece. It was
occasioned by a nun's breaking a vow of perpetual virginity.

ON A RECREANT NUN

It is time, now, to take up the exclamation of the Prophet: "O that
my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might
weep for the wounded of the daughter of my people!"--Jer. ix. i.

For, although they are wrapped in profound silence, and lie quite
stupefied by their calamity, and deprived, by their deadly wound,
even of the very sense of suffering, yet it does not become us to
withhold our tears over so sad a fall. For if Jeremiah deemed those
worthy of countless lamentations who had received bodily wounds in
battle, what shall we say when souls are involved in so great a
calamity? "Thy wounded," says the Prophet, "are not wounded with
the sword, and thy dead are not the dead of war." But my
lamentation is for grievous sin, the sting of the true death, and
for the fiery darts of the wicked, which have cruelly kindled a
flame in both body and soul. Well might the laws of God groan
within themselves, beholding such pollution on earth, those laws
which always utter their loud prohibition, saying in olden time,
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife"; and in the Gospels,
"That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed