“A fact that the most holy blood can be poisoned?” replied the other, with horror evidently genuine.

“I grieve to say, brother,” said Father Johannes, “that in my profane and worldly days I tried that experiment on a dog, and the poor brute died in five minutes.  Ah, brother,” he added, observing that his obese companion was now thoroughly roused, “you see before you the chief of sinners!  Judas was nothing to me; and yet, such are the triumphs of grace, I am an unworthy member of this most blessed and pious brotherhood; but I do penance daily in sackcloth and ashes for my offence.”

“But, Brother Johannes, was it really so? did it really happen?” inquired Father Anselmo, looking puzzled.  “Where, then, is our faith?”

“Doth our faith rest on human reason, or on the evidence of our senses, Brother Anselmo?  I bless God that I have arrived at that state where I can adoringly say, ‘I believe, because it is impossible.’  Yea, brother, I know it to be a fact that the ungodly have sometimes destroyed holy men, like our Superior, who could not be induced to taste wine for any worldly purpose, by drugging the blessed cup; so dreadful are the ragings of Satan in our corrupt nature!”

“I can’t see into that,” said Father Anselmo, still looking confused.

“Brother,” answered Father Johannes, “permit an unworthy sinner to remind you that you must not try to see into anything; all that is wanted of you in our most holy religion is to shut your eyes and believe; all things are possible to the eye of faith.  Now, humanly speaking,” he added, with a peculiarly meaning look, “who would believe that you kept all the fasts of our order, and all the extraordinary ones which it hath pleased our blessed Superior to lay upon us, as you surely do?  A worldling might swear, to look at you, that such flesh and color must come in some way from good meat and good wine; but we remember how the three children throve on the pulse and rejected the meat from the king’s table.”

The countenance of Father Anselmo expressed both anger and alarm at this home-thrust, and the changes did not escape the keen eye of Father Johannes, who went on.

“I directed the eyes of our holy father upon you as a striking example of the benefits of abstemious living, showing that the days of miracles are not yet past in the Church, as some skeptics would have us believe.  He seemed to study you attentively.  I have no doubt he will honor you with some more particular inquiries,—­the blessed saint!”

Father Anselmo turned uneasily on his seat and stealthily eyed his companion, to see, if possible, how much real knowledge was expressed by his words, and then answered on quite another topic.

“How this garden has fallen to decay!  We miss old Father Angelo sorely, who was always trimming and cleansing it.  Our Superior is too heavenly-minded to have much thought for earthly things, and so it goes.”