But I must--I must see the world; I must see the great mother-church
in Alexandria, and the patriarch, and his clergy. If they can serve
God in the city, why not I? I could do more for God there than here
.... Not that I despise this work--not that I am ungrateful to you
--oh, never, never that!--but I pant for the battle. Let me go! I
am not discontented with you, but with myself. I know that
obedience is noble; but danger is nobler still. If you have seen
the world, why should not I? If you have fled from it because you
found it too evil to live in, why should not I, and return to you
here of my own will, never to leave you? And yet Cyril and his
clergy have not fled from it....'

Desperately and breathlessly did Philammon drive this speech out of
his inmost heart; and then waited, expecting the good abbot to
strike him on the spot. If he had, the young man would have
submitted patiently; so would any man, however venerable, in that
monastery. Why not? Duly, after long companionship, thought, and
prayer, they had elected Pambo for their abbot--Abba--father--the
wisest, eldest-hearted and headed of them--if he was that, it was
time that he should be obeyed. And obeyed he was, with a loyal,
reasonable love, and yet with an implicit, soldier-like obedience,
which many a king and conqueror might envy. Were they cowards and
slaves? The Roman legionaries should be good judges on that point.
They used to say that no armed barbarian, Goth or Vandal, Moor or
Spaniard, was so terrible as the unarmed monk of the Thebaid.

Twice the old man lifted his staff to strike; twice he laid it down
again; and then, slowly rising, left Philammon kneeling there, and
moved away deliberately, and with eyes fixed on the ground, to the
house of the brother Aufugus.