e branches of trees.

Now when the brethren were made aware that the whole earth was being
constantly shown thus in vision to the Abbot, they stood in sad dread
of him; even the most pure and lowly-hearted were abashed at this
thought that perchance every act and every vain fancy of theirs was
laid bare to his knowledge. So it came to pass that out of shame and
fear their hearts were little by little estranged from him.

The Abbot was not slow to perceive the change, and he spoke of it when
they met in chapter.

"Truly it is a grievous and a terrible thing," he said, "that any man
should see with the eyes of the soul more than it is given the eye of
flesh to see; and I pray you, brethren, beseech the Lord, if it be His
will, that the vision be withdrawn from me. But if His will it be not,
beseech Him that I may not sin through seeing. So much for myself, but
as for you, dear children, why are you grieved? Because it may be that
I see you when you think no man sees you? Am I then the only one who
sees you? Is there not at least one other--even the high God, from
whom the hidden man of the heart is nowise hidden? If you fear His
holy eyes, little need you fear the eyes of any sinful man."

Such a one was the Abbot Spiridion. His spirit passed from among men
in the hundred and fifth year of his exile, in the third month of the
year, on the morning of the resurrection of the Lord Christ, between
the white and the red of the morning, when the brethren were singing
prime. As he listened to them singing, his cheeks suddenly became
flushed with bright colour, and those who were about him, thinking he
was in pain, asked if in any way they might relieve him; but he replied
in a low voice, "When the heart is glad the face flowers." In a little
after that he laughed softly to himself, and so they knew that his end
was gladness.

When he died there were three hundred religious in that monastery, and
in his stead Samson was made Abbot of Gracedieu.

The body of Spiridion was laid in a stone coffin hard by the abbey
church, and to those who had known the holy man it seemed nothing
strange that the sick and afflicted should come and kneel by his grave,
in the hope that by his intercession they might obtain succour in their
misery. Certain it is that the blind were restored to sight, and the
sick to health, and the painful to great ease; and the fame of these
miracles was noised abroad in the world till thousands came