Within its walls noble fires of faith and piety, enclosed--like the flames of the candles burning on the altars--in traditional forms, were consuming their human envelope, their invisible vapours rising towards heaven, but sending no wave of heat or of light to vibrate beyond the ancient walls.

Currents of living air no longer swept through the monastery, and the monks no longer, as in the first centuries, went out in search of them, labouring in the woods and in the fields, co-operating with the vital energies of nature while they praised God in song.

His talks with Giovanni Selva had brought him indirectly, and little by little, to feel thus regarding the monastic life in its present form, although he was convinced that it has indestructible roots in the human soul.

But now, perhaps for the first time, he looked his belief squarely in the face.

For a long time his wish and his hope had been that Benedetto might become a great gospel labourer; not an ordinary labourer, a preacher, a confessor, but an extraordinary labourer; not a soldier of the regular army, hampered by uniform and discipline, but a free champion of the Holy Spirit.