abandoned me, and I shall live." Only a little while before his death he
wrote some verses, as Padre Giacomo's memorandum witnesses, "with a firm
and steady hand," and the manner of his death was this,--as recorded in
the grave and simple words of my friend's note:--"Finally, on the 17th of
September, very early in the morning, a brother entering his chamber,
asked him how he was. 'Well,' he replied, turning his face to the wall,
and spoke no more. He had passed to a better life."

It seems to me there is a pathos in the close of this old man's life,--
which I hope has not been lost by my way of describing it,--and there is
certainly a moral. I have read of an unlucky sage who discovered the
Elixir of Life, and who, after thrice renewing his existence, at last
voluntarily resigned himself to death, because he had exhausted all that
life had to offer of pleasure or of pain, and knew all its vicissitudes
but the very last. Brother Karabagiak seems to have had no humor to take
even a second ease of life. It is perhaps as well that most men die before
reaching the over-ripeness of a hundred and eight years; and, doubtless,
with all our human willfulness and ignorance, we would readily consent, if
we could fix the time, to go sooner--say, at a hundred and seven years,
friends?

Besides the Convent of San Lazzaro, where Armenian boys from all parts of
the East are educated for the priesthood, the nation has a college in the
city in which boys intended for secular careers receive their schooling.
The Palazzo Zenobia is devoted to the use of this college, where, besides
room for study, the boys have abundant space and apparatus for gymnastics,
and ample grounds for gardening. We once passed a pleasant summer evening
there, strolling through the fragrant alleys of the garden, in talk with
the father-professors, and looking on at the gymnastic feats of the boys;
and when the annual exhibition of the school took place in the fall, we