n a single evening at
supper, and keep my "Tu autem" for the end of all. And truly it is at
the end of all that most there is need of that prayer. So without more
ado.]

Serapion and his companions were, all save one, monks of the Abbey of
the Holy Face. Not the first Abbey of that name, in the warm green
woods in the western creek of Broce-Liande, but the second, which is
nearer to the sunrise. For the site of the first Abbey was most
delightful, and so sheltered from the weary wind of the west, and so
open to the radiance of the morning, that, save it were Paradise, no
man could come at a place so gracious and delectable. There earliest
broke the land into leaf and blossom; and there the leaf was last to
fall; and there one could not die, not even the very aged. Wherefore,
in order that the long years of their pilgrimage might be shortened,
the brethren prevailed on the Abbot to remove to another site, nearer
the spring of the day; and in this new house, one by one in due season,
they were caught up to the repose of the heavens, the aged fathers
dying first, as is seemly.

This then was the second Abbey of the Holy Face, and its pleasant woods
ran down to the shore of the sea. And going east or going west, where
the green billow shades into blue water, the ships of the mariners kept
passing and repassing day after day; and their sails seemed to cast an
enchanted shadow across the cloister; and the monks, as they watched
them leaning over to the breeze, dreamed of the wondrous Garden of
Eden, which had not been swallowed up by the Deluge, but had been saved
as an isle inviolate amid the fountains of the great deep; and they
asked each other whether not one of all these sea-farers would ever
bring back a fruit or a flower or a leaf from the arbours of delight in
which our first parents had dwelt. They spoke of the voyage of Brendan
the Saint, and of the exceeding loveliness of the Earthly Paradise, and
of the deep bliss of breathing its air celestial, till it needed little
to set many of them off on a like perilous adventure.

Of all the brethren Serapion was the most eager to begin that seeking.
And this was what brought him to it at last.

There came to the Abbey on a day in spring that youthful Bishop of
Arimathea who in after time made such great fame in the world. Tall
and stately was he, and black-bearded; a guest pleasant and wise, and
ripe with the experience of distant travel and converse with