But this did not discourage Paula, and her route being happily chosen, she accomplished her journey safely to the mountain of Nitria, where five thousand cenobites lived in fifty different convents, under the rule of one abbot. The news of her coming had preceded her, and the Bishop of Heliopolis had come to welcome the noble lady. He was surrounded by a great crowd of cenobites and anachorites. As soon as they perceived the caravan, they came forward singing hymns. Paula was soon surrounded. She declared herself most unworthy of the honors accorded her, and at the same time glorified God, who worked such marvels in the desert. The bishop first conducted the pious band to the church situated on the summit of the mountain, and there, with that hospitality for which the monks of the East were ever remarkable, the travellers were given the best rooms attached to the convent and intended for the use and convenience of strangers. Fresh water was brought to them to wash their feet, and linen to dry them, and the fruits of the desert to refresh their palates; after which they were allowed to visit the convents and the hermits, whose life was very simple and very free, at the same time holy and austere. Ambitious of reducing the body to servitude, and to penetrate the secrets of things divine, they united action with contemplation. Their days were passed between work and prayer. Some were to be seen digging the earth, cutting trees, fishing in the Nile, or perhaps plaiting the mats on which they were to die. Others were absorbed by the reading of, or meditation on, the Holy Scriptures. The monasteries swarmed like bee-hives.
After having witnessed the cenobitical life, Paula went to the desert of cells to see the anachorite life, which there was carried out in all its austerity and all its poetry. These monks had no walls built by man, but had retired to the mountains as to the most inaccessible asylums. Caverns and rocks were their dwellings, the earth their table, their food roots and wild plants, and water from the springs their refreshment. Their prayers were continual, and all the mountain hollows rang with God's praises. These grottoes did not communicate with each other, and the isolation of the anachorites was complete. Once a week, on Sunday only, they left their cells, and, dressed in robes made of palm-leaves or of sheepskin, they went to the church of Nitria, where they saw one another, and also met the cenobites. Paula wished to know and listen to these pious men. She therefore visited all the grottoes, one by one, talking always of the things of God to their inmates.
Paula's next visit was through a still more savage country to see those called by St. Jerome "the columns of the desert." She cared not for dangers nor fatigue, so that she could contemplate such men as Macarius—the disciple of Antony and Pacomius—a man so austere that he had astonished Pacomius himself, who had watched him during the whole of one Lent plaiting mats in his cell, without speaking to any one, all absorbed in God, and only eating once a week, on Sunday, a few raw vegetables. None could surpass this great ascetic. He permitted the pilgrims to penetrate into his grotto, and delighted Paula with his holy conversation and instruction.
Jerome admired likewise the prodigies of this pure and austere life; but more occupied than Paula with the doctrines he heard discussed, he had perceived that some of the monks were less enlightened than others. It seems, as it afterward was proved, that the theories of Origen were already beginning to trouble the inhabitants of the desert.
There remained now, to complete Paula's insight into the life of the hermits, but to visit the convents founded by Pacomius, which she hesitated not to do. There were six thousand monks living in them, governed by the venerable Serapion. Their rule divided each monastery into a certain number of families. Their frugal lives enabled them to extend their charities far and wide. Their fasting and abstinence lasted all the year round, becoming only more strict in Lent. Paula enjoyed their hospitality greatly, learning much from Serapion that delighted her about this well-organized monastic life which realized her ideal.
She thought for a moment of establishing herself in the desert, and of requesting Serapion to admit her colony under the rule of Pacomius; but the love of the Holy Places prevented her from carrying out this plan. She said "her resting-place was not in these deserts, it was in Bethlehem." Already had she lingered too long! She had now learned all that she wished to learn, enough for her own guidance. She therefore embarked with her entire caravan for Maioma, a sea-port of Gaza; and from there, without stopping on her way, she returned to Jerusalem, and thence to Bethlehem, with as much rapidity, says St. Jerome, as if she had had wings.
Here the news awaited her of the death of her daughter Rufina. The blow was terrible to Paula, but her mind was strengthened by all she had seen, and the voice of God reached her heart and comforted her, and gave her stronger hope than she had ever had in reunion hereafter with her beloved children. She sought to make herself worthy of immortality, and her faith and her good works brought her consolation and peace. She resolved to found two monasteries: one for herself, Eustochium, and her friends from the Aventine; the other for Jerome and his followers. This was done without delay, and they at once began the life which they longed for—a life of labor, of study, and of prayer.
To Be Continued.