At last the sailors drew in the ropes; Paulus turned once more to the youth.  “You are going your own way now,” he said.  “Do not forget the Holy Mountain, and hear this:  Of all sins three are most deadly:  To serve false gods, to covet your neighbor’s wife, and to raise your hands to kill; keep yourself from them.  And of all virtues two are the least conspicuous, and at the same time the greatest:  Truthfulness and humility; practise these.  Of all consolations these two are the best:  The consciousness of wishing the right however much we may err and stumble through human weakness, and prayer.”

Once more he embraced the departing youth, then he went across the sand of the shore back to the mountain without looking round.

Hermas looked after him for a long time greatly distressed, for his strong friend tottered like a drunken man, and often pressed his hand to his head which was no doubt as burning as his lips.

The young warrior never again saw the Holy Mountain or Paulus, but after he himself had won fame and distinction in the army he met again with Petrus’ son, Polykarp, whom the emperor had sent for to Byzantium with great honor, and in whose house the Gaulish woman Sirona presided as a true and loving wife and mother.

After his parting from Hermas, Paulus disappeared.  The other anchorites long sought him in vain, as well as bishop Agapitus, who had learned from Petrus that the Alexandrian had been punished and expelled in innocence, and who desired to offer him pardon and consolation in his own person.  At last, ten days after, Orion the Saite found him in a remote cave.  The angel of death had called him only a few hours before while in the act of prayer, for he was scarcely cold.  He was kneeling with his forehead against the rocky wall and his emaciated hands were closely clasped over Magdalena’s ring.  When his companions had laid him on his bier his noble, gentle features wore a pure and transfiguring smile.

The news of his death flew with wonderful rapidity through the oasis and the fishing-town, and far and wide to the caves of the anchorites, and even to the huts of the Amalekite shepherds.  The procession that followed him to his last resting-place stretched to an invisible distance; in front of all walked Agapitus with the elders and deacons, and behind them Petrus with his wife and family, to which Sirona now belonged.  Polykarp, who was now recovering, laid a palm-branch in token of reconcilement on his grave, which was visited as a sacred spot by the many whose needs he had alleviated in secret, and before long by all the penitents from far and wide.

Petrus erected a monument over his grave, on which Polykarp incised the words which Paulus’ trembling fingers had traced just before his death with a piece of charcoal on the wall of his cave: 

“Pray for me, a miserable man—­for I was a man.”

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