joys.

"I became a new man, and before me there lay in the future an eternal and
blessed existence; after this life I now learned to look forward to
eternity. The gates of Heaven were wide open before me, and I was
baptized at Kanopus.

"In Alexandria they had mourned for me as dead, and my sister Arsinoe, as
heiress to my property, had already moved into my country-house with her
husband, the prefect. I willingly left her there, and now lived again in
the city, in order to support the brethren, as the persecutions had begun
again.

"This was easy for me, as through my brother-in-law I could visit all the
prisons; at last I was obliged to confess the faith, and I suffered much
on the rack and in the porphyry quarries; but every pain was dear to me,
for it seemed to bring me nearer to the goal of my longings, and if I
find ought to complain of up here on the Holy Mountain, it is only that
the Lord deems me unworthy to suffer harder things, when his beloved and
only Son took such bitter torments on himself for me and for every
wretched sinner."

"Ah! saintly man!" murmured Stephanus, devoutly kissing Paulus' sheep-
skin; but Paulus pulled it from him, exclaiming hastily:

"Cease, pray cease--he who approaches me with honors now in this life
throws a rock in my way to the life of the blessed. Now I will go to the
spring and fetch you some fresh water."

When Paulus returned with the water-jar he found Hermas, who had come to