st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

30 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
away the red line ;
showing where the knife had gone
still remains visible, and no earthly physician could
have wrought such a work of healing. The caliph is
convinced, and would fain have had the sufferer
resume his former office. But John pleaded so
earnestly for relief to retire from public
affairs that
his master yielded ;
and so, having disposed of all
his worldly goods, he set out, accompanied by his
old companion Cosmas, for the convent of St. Sabas.
On arriving there he was lovingly received by the
abbat ; but, for a while, none of the inmates would
undertake the task of training so distinguished a
novice. At last an aged monk was found willing.
Taking the new-comer with him to his cell, he taught
him the first principles of monastic obedience : to do
nothing of his own private will, to wrestle with God
in prayer, to let his tears wash out the stains of bygone
sins. Harder perhaps than all these, for one of
Damascenus habits, was the injunction to write to
no one, to keep silence even from good words, to
remember the precept of the heathen Pythagoras.
A less earnest spirit might have broken down under
such probation ;
but John was not one to flinch.
The seed of instruction was falling, in this case,
neither among thorns nor on the rock, but into good
ground. Yet harder trials still remained. The old
monk bade him load his shoulders with baskets, of
the convent make, and go with them straight to
Damascus. There he was to offer them for sale at
double their value, and on no account to bate a jot
of his price. With the fondness of Oriental nations
for driving a bargain, this fixedness of price would