arest brother. It was not till I grew stronger
that they showed me the cross and the crown of thorns of Him who for my
sake also had taken upon Him such far more cruel suffering than
mine, and they taught me to love His wounds, and to bear my own with
submission. In the dry wood of despair soon budded green shoots of
hope, and instead of annihilation at the end of this life they showed me
Heaven and all its joys.

"I became a new man, and before me there lay in the future an eternal
and blessed existence; after this life I now learned to look forward
to eternity. The gates of Heaven were wide open before me, and I was
baptized at Kanopus.

"In Alexandria they had mourned for me as dead, and my sister Arsinoe,
as heiress to my property, had already moved into my country-house with
her husband, the prefect. I willingly left her there, and now lived
again in the city, in order to support the brethren, as the persecutions
had begun again.

"This was easy for me, as through my brother-in-law I could visit all
the prisons; at last I was obliged to confess the faith, and I suffered
much on the rack and in the porphyry quarries; but every pain was dear
to me, for it seemed to bring me nearer to the goal of my longings, and
if I find ought to complain of up here on the Holy Mountain, it is
only that the Lord deems me unworthy to suffer harder things, when his
beloved and only Son took such bitter torments on himself for me and for
every wretched sinner."

"Ah! saintly man!" murmured Stephanus, devoutly kissing Paulus'
sheep-skin; but Paulus pulled it from him, exclaiming hastily:

"Cease, pray cease--he who approaches me with honors now in this life
throws a rock in my way to the life of the blessed. Now I will go to the
spring and fetch you some fresh water."

When Paulus returned with the water-jar he found Hermas, who had come to
wish his father good-morning before he went down to the oasis to fetch
some new medicine from the senator.

CHAPTER VI.

Sirona was sitting at the open window of her bedroom, having her hair
arranged by a black woman that her husband had bought in Rome. She
sighed, while the slave lightly touched the shining tresses here and
there with perfumed oil which she had poured into the palm of her hand;
then she firmly grasped the long thick waving mass of golden hair and
was parting it to make a plait, when Sirona stopped her, saying, "Give
me the mirror."

For some minutes she looked with