y did their
best, according to their light. God grant that we, to whom so much more
light has been given, may do our best likewise. Under this great genius
was young Sturmi trained. Trained (as was perhaps needed for those who
had to do such work in such a time) to have neither wife, nor child, nor
home, nor penny in his purse; but to do all that he was bid, learn all
that he could, and work for his living with his own hands; a life of
bitter self-sacrifice. Such a life is not needed now. Possibly,
nevertheless, it was needed then.

So St. Boniface took Sturmi about with him in his travels, and at last
handed him over to Wigbert, the priest, to prepare him for the ministry.
'Under whom,' says his old chronicler, 'the boy began to know the Psalms
thoroughly by heart; to understand the Holy Scriptures of Christ with
spiritual sense; took care to learn most studiously the mysteries of the
four Gospels, and to bury in his heart, by assiduous reading, the
treasures of the Old and New Testament. For his meditation was in the
Law of the Lord day and night; profound in understanding, shrewd of
thought, prudent of speech, fair of face, sober of carriage, honourable
in morals, spotless in life, by sweetness, humility, and alacrity, he
drew to him the love of all.'

He grew to be a man; and in due time he was ordained priest, 'by the will
and consent of all;' and he 'began to preach the words of Christ
earnestly to the people;' and his preaching wrought wonders among them.

Three years he preached in his Rhineland parish, winning love from all.
But in the third year 'a heavenly thought' came into his mind that he
would turn hermit and dwell in the wild forest. And why? Who can tell?
He may, likely enough, have found celibacy a fearful temptation for a
young and eloquent man, and longed to flee from the sight of that which
must not be his. And that, in his circumstances, was not a foolish wish.
He may have wished to escape, if but once, from the noise and crowd of
outward things, and be alone with God and Christ, and his own soul. And
that was not a foolish wish. John Bunyan so longed, and found what he
wanted in Bedford Jail, and set it down and printed it in a Pilgrim's
Progress, which will live as long as man is man. George Fox longed for
it, and made himself clothes of leather which would not wear out, and
lived in a hollow tree, till he, too, set down the fruit of his solitude
in a diary which will live likewise