Curiosities of Christian History Part 15

ST. CYPRIAN AND JUSTINA (A.D. 304).

St. Cyprian, surnamed the Magician, who died in 304, was a native of Antioch, and had travelled in all the countries where magic was cultivated, in order to acquire that diabolic art. In Antioch lived a young heathen virgin, named Justina, with whom a pagan n.o.ble, named Agladius, was deeply in love. And as she would not listen to him, Cyprian's magical powers were invoked in order to overcome her resolution.

She made the sign of the cross and warded off all their evil arts. Cyprian himself was equally enamoured, and, enraged at being baffled, resolved to give up the diabolic art. He consulted a priest, named Eusebius, who took him to an a.s.sembly of Christians, when he was struck with the new signs of devotion. He became a convert, and burned his books of magic, gave all his goods to the poor, and enrolled himself as a catechumen. Agladius was also about the same time converted. Justina was delighted to see this change, cut off her hair, gave away her jewels, and dedicated herself to a holy life. The persecution of Diocletian breaking out, they were all scourged, and torn with hooks, kept in chains, and finally beheaded. Their relics were carried to Rome by Christians, and a pious lady, named Rufina, built a church to their memory, near the square which bears the name of Claudius. The relics were afterwards removed to the Lateran basilica.

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM AS HERMIT (A.D. 400).

St. John Chrysostom, who died about 407, pa.s.sed many years among the anchorites who lived on the mountains near Antioch. When he was ordained deacon, he became a powerful and fervid preacher. Once, on a seditious resistance made by the people to a new tax levied by Theodosius I., he a.s.sisted the bishop in obtaining a pardon for the ringleaders. When he became himself bishop, he preached with great force against the indelicacy of the female dress, and against gaming, theatres, and swearing. The other bishops conspired against him, and obtained his banishment for alleged seditious acts, but he was soon recalled at the instance of the people. He was again banished to a bleak desert, and died after being a bishop about ten years. His body was carried to Constantinople, and was laid in the Church of the Apostles. He was said to be the most eloquent and fervid of the Fathers. Thomas Aquinas said he would rather be author of his homilies on St. Matthew than own the whole city of Paris.

ST. JAMES, INTERCISUS (A.D. 421).

St. James was a Persian n.o.ble. The king declared war against the Christians, and the n.o.ble had not firmness to refuse. His wife and mother, however, being Christians, and shocked to see this, upbraided him, and wrote a letter that they renounced him for ever. This sank into his soul, and he withdrew from the Court, bewailing the crime he had committed; and the king, hearing of his change of views, was enraged, and, after calling the Council of Ministers, they all agreed that James should be hung on the rack, and his limbs cut off, joint after joint. The executioners, after entreating him in vain to recant, with their scimitars cut off his right thumb. The judge and bystanders, in tears, called out to him that it was enough, and he ought to surrender. But he exulted, and finger after finger was cut off; then the little toe of the left foot, and all the other toes.

After fingers and toes and arms and feet left him only a trunk weltering in his blood, he continued to pray and speak cheerfully, till at last a guard severed the head from the body. This happened in 421. The Christians offered a large sum to obtain the relics, but were refused. They, however, watched an opportunity, and collected them by stealth, finding the limbs in twenty-eight different places. They were all buried in an urn, and in a place concealed from the heathen. The glory of this martyr was renowned in all the Persian, Syrian, Greek, and Latin Churches.

STEPHEN A MARTYR FOR IMAGE WORs.h.i.+P (A.D. 720).

During the controversy raised by the iconoclasts, when all the monks resisted the decrees against image wors.h.i.+p, one monk, Stephen, a hermit who had lived thirty years in a cave at Sinope, greatly distinguished himself. The monks had flocked to the desert to watch in security over their tutelary images, and the most devout of the laity crowded round the cell of Stephen, who furiously denounced the iconoclasts. So many pilgrims resorted to him as their champion that the Emperor ordered him to be carried away from his cell, and shut up in a cloister at Chrysopolis. This act drove the other monks to frenzy. One named Andrew hastened from his dwelling in the desert and boldly confronted the Emperor in the church of St. Mammas, and sternly addressed him thus: "If thou art a Christian, why do you treat Christians with such indignity?" The Emperor commanded his temper, but after again ordering this monk into his presence, the latter was so violent and scornful that the Emperor ordered him to be scourged.

Stephen, however, continued to thunder from his cell against the iconoclasts, and mounted a pillar to be better heard; and other monks flocked and built their cells round this pillar. But this did not satisfy Stephen, who returned to the city and openly denounced and defied the Emperor, and collected a large following. The Emperor ordered him to prison. His followers on hearing of his majesty's annoyance at last rushed to the prison, dragged the old man into the streets and murdered him, and threw his body into the malefactors' grave (as is elsewhere mentioned, _ante_, p. 134).

HUSS THE BOHEMIAN BURNT FOR HERESY IN 1415.

John Huss, who was a Luther a century too soon, was born in 1369, became a preacher, and soon began to see the impostures connected with relic wors.h.i.+pping and indulgences, and became known as a great admirer of Wicliff's writings. He was soon marked out as a heretic, and worried with citations and excommunicated. When three young artisans publicly exclaimed against the sale of indulgences and were seized and condemned and executed, great excitement arose. Some friends dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the victims, a woman in the crowd offered white linen to enshroud them; the dead bodies were carried as saints with chanted hymns and anthems, and buried with great solemnity under the direction of Huss.

Huss was summoned to answer for his many heresies, and he offered to defend himself before the Council of Constance, on condition of the Emperor securing him a safe conduct. The a.s.surance was given, the Emperor Sigismund being at first thought favourable to the views of Huss. But the bishops craftily, on pretence of his attempt at escape, seized and imprisoned him. The Emperor acted weakly and with too much deference to the cardinals, who professed to give Huss a hearing, but took care that it should be only before themselves. His friends had early presentiment that Huss would be done to death by hook or crook. His faithful friend the Knight of Chlum stood always by his side, and protested vigorously against the breach of faith, in all the crafty steps taken, and by the imprisonments imposed before the hearing of the case. At one prison on the Rhine Huss was nearly killed by the noisome effluvia. He was next removed and imprisoned in a tower, and chained day and night. The usual result followed after a few hearings before the council, where he had no opportunity of meeting most of the charges, and where he was mocked and offered a period to recant, and then sentenced to be burnt as an incorrigible heretic. Seven bishops were appointed to see him clothed in priestly vestments, then stripped and degraded. A cap painted with devils was placed on his head and inscribed with the word "Arch-heretic." He was placed on a pile of f.a.gots, and chained to it by the neck. He sang hymns till the smoke and flames stopped him. When his body was burned the ashes were cast into the Rhine, so that nothing of him might be left to pollute the earth, as his murderers vainly imagined.

JOAN OF ARC, A MODERN PATRIOTIC MARTYR (A.D. 1430).

One consequence of William the Conqueror's success was the long and b.l.o.o.d.y wars which lasted for three centuries. It was a misfortune that William Duke of Normandy, one of the great French va.s.sals, should become King of England. From the eleventh to the fourteenth century--from Philip I. to Philip de Valois--this position gave rise between the two crowns and the two states to questions, to quarrels, to political struggles, and to wars which were a frequent source of trouble to France. The evil and the peril became far greater still when in the fourteenth century there arose between France and England--between Philip de Valois and Edward III.--a question touching the succession to the throne of France, and the application of exemption from the Salic law. Then there commenced between the two crowns and the two peoples that war which was to last more than a hundred years, was to bring upon France the saddest days of her history, and was to be ended only by the inspired heroism of a young girl, who alone in the name of her G.o.d and His saints restored confidence and victory to her king and country. Joan of Arc at the cost of her life brought to the most glorious conclusion the longest and bloodiest struggle that had devastated France and sometimes compromised its glory.

JOAN OF ARC BELIEVES SHE HAS A MISSION.

In 1412 this little girl was born at Domremy, and soon learnt to sew and spin and to tend her parents' cattle and sheep. She did not take to dancing, like other girls, though willing to sing and eat cakes under the fairy beech tree of her village. At the age of nine she was noted for her constant attendance at church; the sound of bells enchanted her, and she went often to confession and communion, and was even then taxed with being too religious. France was then torn with civil strife; and the sight of lads of the village sent home torn and bleeding from the wars, and the stories of her poor neighbours whose houses were fired and homesteads devastated by troopers, and the domineering and brutal English, then masters of France, whom she always called "G.o.ddams," stirred her blood and made her wonder that the G.o.d in heaven could allow such mad work to go on.

When she was thirteen, she declared then, and ever after, that, as she was sitting in her father's garden, she heard a voice from heaven calling her, and a great brightness all round the church; and listening with awe, she heard the voice of angels which urged her to go to France and deliver the kingdom. She became then rapt in thought, and often the voices came to her again and again, urging her on. She at last broke the secret to her father; but he, being only a stupid peasant, chided her for her nonsense, and even threatened to drown her if she repeated it. She soon found home uncomfortable, and went and nursed her aunt, and also opened her heart to her uncle, begging him to take her to see the captain of the bailiwick, for she was sure he would help her to go to the Dauphin and a.s.sist to recover France for the French. She did get an audience, and told the captain she came from the Lord, who would be sure to help the Dauphin. On asking her who was her Lord, she said He was the King of Heaven, at which the captain set her down at once for a little madcap who should be sent home and well whipped. But the little persistent cow-girl, still further excited by news of the wars, told the captain that she was determined to go and raise the siege of Orleans, and that if she had a hundred fathers and mothers, and if she were the King's daughter, she must and would go in spite of them all. At last the captain, puzzled and at his wits' end, wrote about the little crazy girl and her visions to the Duke of Lorraine, who was so impressed that he sent for her, and then everybody began to talk of her wild schemes and enterprise as the wonder of the times.

JOAN OF ARC GOES TO INTERVIEW THE KING.

When Joan of Arc, aged nineteen, got the length of being sent for by the Duke of Lorraine, John of Metz, the knight, was a.s.signed to escort her, and he asked if she meant to go in her little red petticoat. "No," said she, "I should like to be in man's clothes." When this was known, the people round about subscribed to get her a military costume, and she was supplied with a horse, a coat of mail, a lance, a sword, a messenger, and a train; and she took farewell of her rustic friends and got their blessing. In the journey of eleven days her spirit never flagged, and she only wished she could hear Ma.s.s daily which she contrived once or twice to do. Everybody treated with respect the inspired cow-girl, and her constant appeals to Heaven and to the commission which she said she bore direct from the G.o.d of Battles. She was rather tall, well shaped, dark, with a look of composed a.s.surance which staggered even the old veterans of the war. Once on her journey a band of roughs had prepared to waylay and rob her; but on a sight of her they were struck motionless and quailed.

When she arrived near to headquarters, the King's council debated whether the King ought to receive her; and as he was then at his wits' end, and had spent all the money in the treasury, it was decided that he might. The high steward conducted her forward; it was candlelight: warriors and knights, richly dressed, stood in rows looking on; and yet it was noticed that she by instinct fixed on the King among the crowd of grandees, and the young shepherdess at once made her bends and courtesies, as if she had been bred in courts. She at once took high ground, and said, "Good Dauphin, my name is Joan, the maid. The King of Heaven sends me to a.s.sure you that you shall be anointed and crowned in the city of Rheims, and shall be lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who is King of France. It is G.o.d's will that these English foes shall be driven out of our country."

The King was astounded, and the chroniclers say he received her message with radiant face as a message from Heaven. Many interviews followed, and as he listened he began to believe in Heaven, and even in himself as destined to recover his kingdom as the true heir of France.

JOAN OF ARC PUT AT THE HEAD OF AN ARMY.

After Joan of Arc had had an interview with the King and a.s.sured him that G.o.d was on her side, the King took the advice kindly, but his stiff-necked courtiers shook their heads at the shepherdess and her schemes. At last a large committee of bishops, kings, councillors, and learned doctors resolved to go and question this presumptuous young person. One doctor tried to puzzle her by asking why she wanted men-at-arms to go and rout out the English, when, if it were G.o.d's will, no men would be needed. She answered that warriors would fight, and G.o.d would give them the victory.

Another pundit asked her in what language the voices spoke to her, and she retorted, "A better dialect than yours." A third pundit thought he would stop her by asking if she believed in G.o.d, to which she replied, "More than you do." Next the wiseacres told her they must have a sign before they could trust her with an army. She answered, "In the name of G.o.d, I am not come to Poitiers to show signs; take me to Orleans and I will give you signs of what I am sent for. I come on behalf of the King of Heaven to cause the siege of Orleans to be raised, and to take the King to Rheims that he may be crowned and anointed there." The doctors and councillors kept up their siege of questions at this obscure shepherdess for a fortnight, and her good temper and unflagging faith in her mission broke down their unbelief, so that they all decided that she must surely be inspired. Next a deputation of princesses and court ladies visited and questioned her, and they also were all so struck with the modesty, sweetness, and grace of her demeanour and speech that they were subdued to tears. The King no longer hesitated. Joan was accepted as a heaven-born marshal, and there was a.s.signed to her a squire, a page, two heralds, a chaplain, many serving-men, and a complete suit of armour. She asked that her sword should be marked with five crosses; her banner was white and studded with lilies, and there were the words "Jesu Maria," with angels adoring, and a picture of G.o.d in the clouds holding in His hand the globe and its destinies. These accoutrements being provided, she was urgent for the immediate departure of the expedition, as she said Orleans was crying aloud for succour. It took five weeks to get together an army of twelve thousand men; but at last off they went, Joan's chaplain and some priests chanting sacred hymns, much to the amazement of the swearing troopers, who had never seen the like before.

JOAN OF ARC RAISES THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS.

When the army marched with Joan to succour Orleans, the generals suggested that the best plan would be for her to go into the city with a convoy of provisions, and she at once acted on the advice; and with her banner and priests and two hundred men-at-arms she entered the city at night; and on sight of her the besieged inhabitants rose in a ma.s.s, and with torches and shouts of joy hailed her as a G.o.ddess sent to deliver them. She said her first duty was to enter the church and give thanks to G.o.d, and then she would go to the governor's house. A splendid supper was prepared for her, but she would only dip some slices of bread in wine and water. Her modesty and simplicity charmed all the company, and she had quarters in the governor's house, and slept with one of his daughters. The besiegers heard of Joan and the frenzy she had excited, and they cursed her as a little sorceress. But her own soldiers were keen to go out at once and storm the bastiles of the English. She thought it fair to give the enemy warning, and mounted one of the bastions and shouted to the English to stop and be gone; but the English general only jeered at her; and told her to go home and mind her cows. The battle went on a few days, and Joan, having called for her horse and armour, eagerly joined and encouraged the garrison. At one stage of the attack she took a scaling-ladder, set it against the rampart, and was the first to mount. But an arrow struck her between the neck and shoulder, and she fell. Yet, after retiring to have her wound dressed, she remounted her horse and shook her banner in the air; her men rallied, and with one great rush carried the bastile and routed the English. The bells rang out all night at this victory, and the _Te Deum_ was chanted. The English were soon seen to be in retreat, leaving much victual and ammunition behind, and many sick and prisoners. The siege of Orleans was raised. A few days later Joan was anxious to visit the King; and when they met, he took off his cap and held out his hand, and the chroniclers say he would fain have kissed her for the joy that he felt.

She on her side thought of nothing but to urge him to march at once while the enemy was flying, and get himself crowned at Rheims. The pious maid again reminded him that the voices were urging her and would not let her rest.

JOAN GETS THE KING CROWNED AT RHEIMS.

After the siege of Orleans was raised, and Joan of Arc was urging the next part of the programme, to have the King crowned at Rheims, she took part in sieges and a.s.saults, and was gravely consulted by the generals.

Difficulties were started about going at once to Rheims, and sometimes she issued military orders herself which embarra.s.sed the plans; but she had great influence with the army and the people and those who flocked to join the standard attracted by her fame. She urged an instant a.s.sault on Troyes, and got a grumbling a.s.sent of the chiefs; and when mounting the earthwork and shouting out "a.s.sault," it so happened that Troyes capitulated to the King on terms. The royal forces then entered in triumph, with the maid at the King's side carrying her banner. At that stage some of her old village friends came to see her in her great position, and she received and welcomed them like a born princess, so that they were charmed. The King in a day or two thereafter entered Rheims, and at the coronation Joan rode in state between a general, an archbishop, and the Chancellor of France. When this great ceremony was over, Joan said she had completed the charge given her by the Lord, and now if it pleased Him she would gladly go back to her father and mother and tend the cattle as before. On hearing this the great councillors more and more believed that Joan had been sent as a messenger from Heaven. But difficulties still surrounded the army, and Joan seemed bent on driving out the English. Yet people noticed that Joan's power somehow drooped after the King was crowned. She kept with the King and busied herself with affairs. Talbot, the English general, insulted her by sending flags painted with a sign of the distaff and the words, "Now, fair one, come on!" The King moved on to Paris, and she took part in an unsuccessful a.s.sault there and elsewhere.

When she was fighting at Compiegne, and the enemy being determined to capture the little warrior in her red sash and rich surcoat, she was at last overmastered, and was taken prisoner. She had for some time before surmised that she would be betrayed, and that her career was near its close.

A YOUNG PRINCE'S FIRST SIGHT OF JOAN.

When Joan had raised the siege of Orleans and was urging the King to go to Rheims to be crowned, and he was distracted by the diversity of his councillors, a young prince, Guy de Laval, wrote on June 8th, 1429, to his mother about Joan as follows: "The King had sent for Joan to come and meet him at Selles-en-Berry. Some say that it was for my sake, in order that I might see her. She gave right good welcome to my brother and myself, and after we had dismounted at Selles I went to see her in her quarters. She ordered wine, and told me that she should soon have me drinking some at Paris. It seems a thing divine to look on her and listen to her. I saw her mount on horseback, clad all in white armour save her head, and with a little axe in her hand, on a great black charger, which at the door of her quarters was very restive and would not let her mount. Then said she, 'Lead him to the cross,' which was in front of the neighbouring church on the road. There she mounted him without his moving, and as if he were tied up; and turning towards the door of the church, which was very nigh at hand, she said in a soft womanly voice, 'You priests and churchmen, make procession and prayer to G.o.d.' Then she resumed her road, saying, 'Push forward! push forward!' She told me that three days before my arrival she had sent my dear grandmother a little golden ring, but that it was a very small matter, and she would have liked to send you something better, having regard to your dignity."

JOAN TAKEN CAPTIVE AND BURNT AS A HERETIC (1431).

When Joan was taken prisoner at the siege of Compiegne, she was kept six months in various castles by John of Luxemburg; but her youth, virtue, and courage made friends of her gaolers. The governor, however, was a sordid creature, and sold her to her enemies for English gold. Then another brutal creature called a bishop of Beauvais, also an inquisitor, rose up and insisted on his right to judge her, as she was captured within his diocese. She was taken to Rouen to be tried as a rebel heretic. Joan had a presentiment of her fate, and said, "I know well that these English will put me to death; but were they a hundred thousand more G.o.ddams than have already been in France, they shall never have the kingdom." On hearing this, the English Earl of Stafford half drew his dagger to strike her, but was held back. As she was led to Rouen, great crowds came to see her; ladies of distinction went five leagues to speak comfort to her and encourage her, and wept on parting. The brutal bishop, like a vulture of the desert, seized on her as his prey; and though some lookers-on cried shame, and protested that the trial was illegal, this demon inquisitor had her locked in an iron cage, with irons on her feet, and kept in a dark room, guarded night and day in a castle tower, while a sham trial was kept up for forty days, and idle questions cast at her. The demon judge, after trying in vain to shake her fort.i.tude, at last had her brought into the torture chamber. But Joan told him, "If you tear me limb from limb, you shall get nothing more from me; nay, if I were at the stake and saw the torch lighting the f.a.gots, I shall say naught else." Joan was declared a heretic and a rebel; she was hara.s.sed to sign an abjuration, and a mock signature being forced from her, she was at first condemned to perpetual imprisonment. Part of her alleged crime was the wearing of man's clothes, and after a struggle she refused to give this up. She was tried and retried, and at last forty judges agreed that she must be burned at the stake. A woman's dress was put on her, and she was dragged to the place of execution. Her last wish was to have the cross, whereon G.o.d hung, kept continually in her sight as long as she lived. She was then done to death, and even the demon bishop was said for once to drop a tear as the inspired maid was in her last agony.

OUTBREAK OF THE HERMIT ZEAL (A.D. 340).

Egypt afforded the first example of the monastic life; and at the head of the new zealots for macerating the body in order to perfect the soul was Antony, an illiterate youth, born in 305. After rehearsing the solitary life in Thebais and searching for a suitable site in the desert, he settled on Mount Colzim, near the Red Sea. He was a friend of Athanasius, the champion of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. Others followed his example, and the region of the Nile soon swarmed with disciples. It was said that five thousand anchorites peopled the Desert of Nitria, south of Alexandria. Some thought that half of the population had taken to this sequestered mode of life, so that the old saying was repeated that in Egypt it was less difficult to find a G.o.d than a man. Athanasius introduced the knowledge and admiration of the monastic life to the Roman senators who began to take an interest in this new philosophy. A Syrian youth, named Hilarion, was incited by his enthusiasm to follow Antony's example, and fix his cell on a sandy beach seven miles from Gaza, where he lived forty-eight years. Even Basil once spent some time in a savage solitude in Pontus. And Martin of Tours, who was soldier, hermit, bishop, and saint, established the monasteries of Gaul. The fame of these hermits filled the whole earth wherever a knowledge of Christianity had spread.

This pilgrim, visiting Jerusalem, carried there the habits of the new models of Christian life, and members of wealthy families yielded to the fas.h.i.+on of piety. Jerome himself persuaded Paula and her daughter Eustochium to retire to Bethlehem and found monasteries, and pursue a system of rigid self-mortification.

FIRST BEGINNINGS OF MONASTIC LIFE (A.D. 340).

The monastic life, as a system, was not much known till the end of the fourth century. It has been conjectured that the circ.u.mstances of the Decian persecution, about the middle of the third century, caused many persons in Egypt to retreat for safety to the desert, and then, finding complete security, this became a second nature, the climate being mild and cells and cottages being easily constructed. There were at first only individuals here and there, and no regular society till the peaceable reign of Constantine, when Pachomius is said to have founded some monasteries in Thebais. Antony, the first hermit of note, gave a contemporary of Pachomius this account: "When I first became a monk, there was as yet no monastery in any part of the world where one man was obliged to take care of another, but every one of the ancient monks, when the persecution was ended, exercised the monastic life by himself in private. Afterwards Father Pachomius, by the help of G.o.d, brought the monks to live in communities." Before 250 those who lived a lonely life were called ascetics. Hilarion, who was scholar to Antony, was the first monk who ever lived in Palestine or Syria. Not long after this new mode of life spread to Armenia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus; then it reached Thrace and parts of Europe. It was not till Athanasius came to Italy and Rome in 340 that he introduced this mode of society. Marcella was the first n.o.ble woman who took to this life at Rome, being instructed by Athanasius during the Arian persecution. Pelagius, about 400, introduced monastic life into Britain. Monks at first were laymen and not clergy, their office being not to teach but to mourn. It was not till after 1311 that Pope Clement obliged all monks to take holy orders, so that they might say private Ma.s.s for the honour of G.o.d.

THE TEMPTATIONS OF ST. ANTONY (A.D. 340).

St. Antony, the founder of the monastic life in Egypt, who died in 356, at the age of one hundred and four, soon after he began to live in the tombs as a hermit was found in a trance, and carried to a church as one dead. He afterwards related that in the night the devil had sent his legions to terrify him. They upraised so great a clamour that the whole place seemed to quake, and, as if bursting through the four walls of the cell, devils rushed in upon him from all sides, transformed in the guise of wild beasts and creeping things, and the place was straightway filled with spectres of lions, bears, leopards, bulls, serpents, asps, scorpions, and wolves, all of them in motion after their proper fas.h.i.+on,--the lion roaring as about to spring on him, the bull threatening to gore him, the serpent hissing, the wolf in the act of flying at him, but all in seeming only as under restraint, though dire were the noises and fierce the menaces of those phantoms crowding around him. And Antony mocked them and said, "Ye seek to terrify me with numbers, but this aping of wild beasts only proves your weakness. If you have any power, delay not, but come on; for faith in the Lord is my seal and my wall of salvation." And they all gnashed their teeth at him, looking as if preparing to a.s.sail him. But the Lord meanwhile did not forget Antony, and came to his a.s.sistance. The saint, looking up, saw as it were the roof opened and a ray of light descending upon him. And the devils on a sudden disappeared; and the pain of his body was straightway a.s.suaged, and the cell was clear as before. And Antony rose up and prayed, and received more strength than he ever had before.

ONE HERMIT VISITING ANOTHER (A.D. 340).

Ruffinus says that Macarius once went to visit Antony in the mountain, and, knocking at the door, Antony opened to him and asked, "Who art thou?"

He answered, "I am Macarius." And Antony, to prove him, shut the door and left him without, as if holding him in contempt, till, considering his patience, he opened and admitted him joyfully, saying, "Long have I heard of thy fame and desired to see thee." And then he made ready, and they ate together in charity. And in the evening Antony wetted certain palm leaves to weave baskets with, and Macarius asked for some likewise to work along with him; and thus sitting and discoursing of things useful to the soul they made a mat of those leaves; and Antony, seeing that what Macarius had woven was well done, kissed his hands, and said, "Much virtue issues forth of these hands, my brother."

A STARVED HERMIT AND THE BUNCH OF GRAPES.