that did not altogether please him. And yet yesterday in the oasis he
had quietly submitted to far worse insults than Polykarp had offered him,
and had accepted them with contented cheerfulness. Whence then to-day
this wild sensitiveness and eager desire to fight?

When, two days since, he had gone to his old cave to fetch the last of
his hidden gold pieces, he had wished to greet old Stephanus, but the
Egyptian attendant had scared him off like an evil spirit with angry
curses, and had thrown stones after him. In the oasis he had attempted
to enter the church in spite of the bishop's prohibition, there to put up
a prayer; for he thought that the antechamber, where the spring was and
in which penitents were wont to tarry, would certainly not be closed even
to him; but the acolytes had driven him away with abusive words, and the
door-keeper, who a short time since had trusted him with the key, spit in
his face, and yet he had not found it difficult to turn his back on his
persecutors without anger or complaint.

At the counter of the dealer of whom he had bought the woollen coverlet,
the little jug, and many other things for Sirona, a priest had passed by,
had pointed to his money, and had said, "Satan takes care of his own."

Paulus had answered him nothing, had returned to his charge with an
uplifted and grateful heart, and had heartily rejoiced once more in the
exalted and encouraging consciousness that he was enduring disgrace and
suffering for another in humble imitation of Christ. What was it then
that made him so acutely sensitive with regard to Polykarp, and once more
snapped those threads, which long years of self-denial had twined into
fetters for his impatient spirit? Was it that to the man, who mortified
his flesh in order to free his soul from its bonds it seemed a lighter
matter to be contemned as a sinner, hated of God, than to let his person