"You and I," repeated the sick man thoughtfully. "Yes, each of us has
sought his own way, but has enquired only which was his own way, and has
never concerned himself about that of the other. Self! self!--How many
years we have dwelt close together, and I have never felt impelled to ask
you what you could recall to mind about your youth, and how you were led
to grace. I learnt by accident that you were an Alexandrian, and had
been a heathen, and had suffered much for the faith, and with that I was
satisfied. Indeed you do not seem very ready to speak of those long past
days. Our neighbor should be as dear to us as our self, and who is
nearer to me than you? Aye, self and selfishness! There are many gulfs
on the road towards God."

"I have not much to tell," said Paulus. "But a man never forgets what
he once has been. We may cast the old man from us, and believe we have
shaken ourselves free, when lo! it is there again and greets us as an old
acquaintance. If a frog only once comes down from his tree he hops back
into the pond again."

"It is true, memory can never die!" cried the sick man. "I can not sleep
any more; tell me about your early life and how you became a Christian.
When two men have journeyed by the same road, and the moment of parting
is at hand, they are fain to ask each other's name and where they came
from."

Paulus gazed for some time into space, and then he began: "The companions
of my youth called me Menander, the son of Herophilus. Besides that, I
know for certain very little of my youth, for as I have already told you,
I have long since ceased to allow myself to think of the world. He who
abandons a thing, but clings to the idea of the thing, continues--"