plaining
that, though the crop was dead ripe, a sufficient number of harvesters
could not be found. Mochuda answered: "Go in peace, dear brother, and
God will send you satisfactory reapers." This promise was fulfilled,
for a band of angels came to the ripest and largest fields, reaped and
bound a great deal quickly, and gathered the crop into one place. The
monks marvelled, though they knew it was God's work and they praised and
thanked Him and Mochuda.

The spirit of obedience amongst Mochuda's monks was such that if any
senior member of the community ordered another to lie in the fire he
would be obeyed. As an instance of this,--some of the brethren were on
one occasion baking bread in an oven when one the monks said to another
younger than himself, "The bread is burning: take it out instantly."
There was an iron shovel for drawing out the bread but the brother could
not find it on the instant. He heeded not the flames which shot out of
the oven's mouth but caught the hot bread and shifted it with his hands
and suffered no hurt whatever. On another day the monks were engaged in
labour beside the river which runs through the monastery. One of the
senior monks called upon a young monk named Colman to do a certain piece
of work. Immediately, as he had not named any particular Colman, twelve
monks of the name rushed into the water. The readiness and exactness of
the obedience practised was displayed in this incident.

Great moreover was their meekness and patience in sickness or ill-health
as appears from the case of the monk out of the wounds of whose body
maggots fell as he walked; yet he never complained or told anyone or
left his work for two moments although it was plain from his appearance
that his health was declining, and he was growing thinner from day to
day. The brothers pitied him very much. At length Mochuda questioned
him--putting him under obedience to tell the truth--as to the cause of
his decline. The monk thereupon showed him his sides which were torn by
a twig tied fast around them. Mochuda asked him who had done that
barbarous and intolerable thing to him. The monk answered:--"One day
while we were drawing logs of timber from the wood my girdle broke from
the strain, so that my clothes hung loose. A monk behind me saw this
and cutting a twig tied it so tightly around my sides that it has caused
my flesh to mortify." Mochuda asked--"And why did you not loosen the
twig?" The monk repl