ere as a
bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, but now what a blessed change! It must
give you so much peace! How you must love him!"

"I think we love him about equally," said Father Johannes, his dark,
thin features expressing the concentration of malignity. "His labors
have been blessed among us. Not often does a faithful shepherd meet so
loving a flock. I have been told that the great Peter Abelard found far
less gratitude. They tried to poison him in the most holy wine."

"How absurd!" interrupted Father Anselmo, hastily; "as if the blood of
the Lord, as if our Lord himself, could be made poison!"

"Brother, it is a fact," insisted the former, in tones silvery with
humility and sweetness.

"A fact that the most holy blood can be poisoned?" replied the other,
with horror evidently genuine.

"I grieve to say, brother," said Father Johannes, "that in my profane
and worldly days I tried that experiment on a dog, and the poor brute
died in five minutes. Ah, brother," he added, observing that his obese
companion was now thoroughly roused, "you see before you the chief of
sinners! Judas was nothing to me; and yet, such are the triumphs
of grace, I am an unworthy member of this most blessed and pious
brotherhood; but I do penance daily in sackcloth and ashes for my
offence."

"But, Brother Johannes, was it really so? did it really happen?"
inquired Father Anselmo, looking puzzled. "Where, then, is our faith?"

"Doth our faith rest on human reason, or on the evidence of our senses,
Brother Anselmo? I bless God that I have arrived at that state where I
can adoringly say, 'I believe, because it is impossible.' Yea, brother,
I know it to be a fact that the ungodly have sometimes destroyed holy
men, like our Superior, who could not be induced to taste wine for
any worldly purpose, by drugging the blessed cup; so dreadful are the
ragings of Satan in our corrupt nature!"

"I can't see into that," said Father Anselmo, still looking confused.

"Brother," answered Father Johannes, "permit an unworthy sinner to
remind you that you must not try to see into anything; all that is
wanted of you in our most holy religion is to shut your eyes and
believe; all things are possible to the eye of faith. Now, humanly
speaking," he added, with a peculiarly meaning look, "who would believe
that you kept all the fasts of our order, and all the extraordinary ones
which it hath pleased our blessed Superior to lay upon us, as you surely
do? A