an, for thyself!'

As he spoke, a long arrow of level light flashed down the gorge from
crag to crag, awakening every crack and slab to vividness and life. The
great crimson sun rose swiftly through the dim night-mist of the desert,
and as he poured his glory down the glen, the haze rose in threads and
plumes, and vanished, leaving the stream to sparkle round the rocks,
like the living, twinkling eye of the whole scene. Swallows flashed by
hundreds out of the cliffs, and began their air-dance for the day; the
jerboa hopped stealthily homeward on his stilts from his stolen meal
in the monastery garden; the brown sand-lizards underneath the stones
opened one eyelid each, and having satisfied themselves that it was
day, dragged their bloated bodies and whip-like tails out into the most
burning patch of gravel which they could find, and nestling together as
a further protection against cold, fell fast asleep again; the buzzard,
who considered himself lord of the valley, awoke with a long querulous
bark, and rising aloft in two or three vast rings, to stretch himself
after his night's sleep, bung motionless, watching every lark which
chirruped on the cliffs; while from the far-off Nile below, the
awakening croak of pelicans, the clang of geese, the whistle of the
godwit and curlew, came ringing up the windings of the glen; and last
of all the voices of the monks rose chanting a morning hymn to some wild
Eastern air; and a new day had begun in Seetis, like those which went
before, and those which were to follow after, week after week, year
after year, of toil and prayer as quiet as its sleep.

'What does that teach thee, Aufugus, my friend?'

Arsenius was silent.

'To me it teaches this: that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at
all. That in His presence is life, and fulness of joy for evermore. That
He is the giver, who delights in His own bounty; the lover, whose mercy
is over all His works--and why not over thee, too, O thou of little
faith? Look at those thousand birds--and without our Father not one of
them shall fall to the ground: and art thou not of more value than many
sparrows, thou for whom God sent His Son to die?.... Ah, my friend, we
must look out and around to see what God is like. It is when we
persist in turning our eyes inward, and prying curiously over our own
imperfections, that we learn to make a God after our own image, and
fancy that our own darkness and hardness of heart are the patterns of
H