Basil looked up fearfully, and answered with tremulous lips: 

‘Not in my own strength; but perchance with the help of God.’

A grave smile passed over Benedict’s countenance.

’It is well, my son; again, it is well.  Come now, and let us reason of this your sin.  You avow to me that God and His commands have ever been little in your mind, whereas you have thought much of this world and its governance.  I might ask you how it is possible to reflect on the weal and woe of human kind without taking count of Him who made the world and rules it; but let me approach you with a narrower inquiry.  You tell me that you love your country, and desire its peace.  How comes it, then, that you are numbered with the violent, the lawless, with those who renounce their citizenship and dishonour the State?  Could not all your worldly meditations preserve you from so gross an incoherence of thought and action?’

‘Indeed, it should have done.’

’And would, perchance, had not your spleen overcome your reason.  Why, that is the case, O Basil, of all but every man who this day calls himself a Roman citizen.  Therefore is it that Italy lies under the wrath of the Most High.  Therefore is it that Rome has fallen, and that the breath of pestilence, the sword of the destroyer, yea, earthquake and flood and famine, desolate the land.  Yet you here find little time, my son, to meditate the laws of God, being so busied for the welfare of men.  Methinks your story has aimed a little wide.’

Basil bent low before this gentle irony, which softened his heart.  The abbot mused a moment, gazing upon the golden cross.

‘In the days of old,’ he continued, ’Romans knew how to subdue their own desires to the good of their country.  He who, in self-seeking, wronged the State, was cast forth from its bosom.  Therefore was it that Rome grew mighty, the Omnipotent fostering her for ends which the fulness of time should disclose.  Such virtue had our ancestors, even though they worshipped darkly at the altars of daemons.  But from that pride they fell, for their hearts were hardened; and, at length, when heathendom had wellnigh destroyed the principle whereby they waxed, God revealed Himself unto His chosen, that ancient virtue and new faith might restore the world.  To turn your thought upon these things, I sent you the book written long ago by the holy father Augustine, concerning the Divine State.  Have you read in it?’

‘Some little,’ answered Basil, ‘but with wandering mind.’

’Therein you will discover, largely expounded, these reasonings I do but touch upon.  I would have you trace God’s working in the past, and, by musing upon what now is, ripen yourself in that citizenship whereon you have prided yourself, though you neither understood its true meaning nor had the strength to perform its duties.  Losing sight of the Heavenly City for that which is on earth, not even in your earthly service were you worthy of the