His life to ransom ours is given,
And lo! the fiercest fire of heaven
Consumes the sacrifice.
“‘He suffers both from men and God;
He bears the universal load
Of guilt and misery!
He suffers to reverse our doom,
And lo! my Lord is here become
The bread of life to me.’
“Now all his bonds were broken. His freed soul began to breathe a purer air. Sin was beneath his feet. He could triumph in the Lord. From this time, he walked in the ways of God, and, thinking he had not leisure enough in the day, he made it a constant rule to sit up two whole nights in the week for reading, prayer, and meditation. At the same time, he lived on nothing but vegetables, and on bread with milk and water. One end of his doing this was to avoid dining in company. Besides sitting up two entire nights every week, his custom was never to sleep so long as he could keep awake, and he always took a candle and book with him to bed. One night, being overcome with sleep before he had put out his candle, he dreamed that his curtain, pillow, and cap were on fire, but went out without doing him any harm. And truly so it was, for in the morning his curtain was found burnt, also a corner of his pillow, and a part of his cap, but not a hair of his head was singed.