when pressed by him, they confessed that they had never said a foul
word to each other, and never quarrelled. At one time they had
agreed together to retire into a nunnery, but could not, for all
their prayers, obtain the consent of their husbands. On which they
had both made an oath, that they would never, to their deaths, speak
one worldly word.

Which when the blessed Macarius had heard, he said, "In truth there
is neither virgin, nor married woman, nor monk, nor secular; but God
only requires the intention, and ministers the spirit of life to
all."



ARSENIUS



I shall give one more figure, and that a truly tragical one, from
these "Lives of the Egyptian Fathers," namely, that of the once
great and famous Arsenius, the Father (as he was at one time called)
of the Emperors. Theodosius, the great statesman and warrior, who
for some twenty years kept up by his single hand the falling empire
of Rome, heard how Arsenius was at once the most pious and the most
learned of his subjects; and wishing--half barbarian as he was
himself--that his sons should be brought up, not only as scholars,
but as Christians, he sent for Arsenius to his court, and made him
tutor to his two young sons Honorius and Arcadius. But the two lads
had neither their father's strength nor their father's nobleness.
Weak and profligate, they fretted Arsenius's soul day by day; and,