ake on the look of a failure. It
has little reason in it, perhaps, but it has all the more weariness
and gloom, because the man who is oppressed by it feels dimly that
it is an unnatural and an unreasonable thing, that he should be
separated from the joy of his companions, and tired of living before
he has fairly begun to live.

Hermas had fallen into the very depths of this strange self-pity. He
was out of tune with everything around him. He had been thinking,
through the dead, still night, of all that he had given up when he
left the house of his father, the wealthy pagan Demetrius, to join
the company of the Christians. Only two years ago he had been one of
the richest young men in Antioch. Now he was one of the poorest. And
the worst of it was that, though he had made the choice willingly
and accepted the sacrifice with a kind of enthusiasm, he was already
dissatisfied with it.

The new life was no happier than the old. He was weary of vigils and
fasts, weary of studies and penances, weary of prayers and sermons.
He felt like a slave in a treadmill. He knew that he must go on. His
honour, his conscience, his sense of duty, bound him. He could not
go back to the old careless pagan life again; for something had
happened within him which made a return impossible. Doubtless he had
found the true religion, but he had found it only as a task and a
burden; its joy and peace had slipped away from him.

He felt disillusioned and robbed. He sat beside his hard little
couch, waiting without expectancy for the gray dawn of another empty
day, and hardly lifting his head at the shouts of his friends.

"Come down, Hermas, you sluggard! Come down! It is Christmas morn.
Awake and be glad with us!"

"I am coming," he answered listlessly; "only have patience a moment.
I have been awake since midnight, and waiting for the day."

"You hear him!" said his friends one to another. "How he puts us all
to shame! He is more watchful, more eager, than any of us. Our
master, John the Presbyter, does well to be proud of him. He is the
best man in our class. When he is baptized the church will get a
strong member."

While they were talking the door opened and Hermas stepped out. He
was a figure to be remarked in any company--tall, broad-shouldered,
straight-hipped, with a head proudly poised on the firm column of
the neck, and short brown curls clustering over the square forehead.
It was the perpetual type of vigourous and intelligent yo