The house of Apollo he purified for Christian service, and set under the invocation of the Holy Martin.

The other temples he laid low, and having cut down the grove sacred to Apollo, on that spot he raised an oratory in the name of the Baptist.

Not without much spiritual strife was all this achieved; for--the good Marcus subdued his voice--Satan himself more than once overthrew what the monks had built, and, together with the demons whom Benedict had driven forth, often assailed the holy band with terrors and torments.

Had not the narrator, who gently boasted a part in these beginnings, been once all but killed by a falling column, which indeed must have crushed him, but that he stretched out a hand in which, by happy chance, he was holding a hammer, and this--for a hammer is cruciform--touching the great pillar, turned its fall in another direction.

Where stood the temple of Venus was now a vineyard, yielding excellent wine.
'Whereof, surely, you must not drink ?' interposed Basil, with a smile.
'Therein, good brother,' replied Marcus, 'you show but little knowledge of our dear lord abbot.