"The knight has made progress, it is true, in the way of real life. He is almost old enough to reign; but his guardian angel demands yet a space of time before imprinting on his soul the seal of the eternal and heavenly life. Go thy way, and continue thy search."
The hermit, in the silence of his cell, was terrified to see how hard it was to attain length of years according to the reckoning of the angels; but he redoubled his zeal to discover the rare treasure demanded by St. Michael. Seven Sundays having passed away weeping and praying in the undercroft of the church of St. Gerbold, shepherd of Bayeux, of learned memory, he saw the archangel with his sword of gold coming toward him resplendent with light. Troubled in the depths of his heart, the hermit said to him humbly: "I have only one name to present thee, and this name offers but little that is worthy of relating; yet I lay it before thee." And he held forth the paper wet with his tears to St. Michael, who took it, smiling meanwhile on the trembling hermit.
The paper had hardly been placed in the angel's hands when the sombre crypt was filled with a soft light; an unknown perfume embalmed the air, and the hermit, almost ravished with ecstasy, at once understood that the chosen one so long sought after was at length found. …
The elect soul rose like a blue vapor above the tower of the church, above the lofty mountains, beyond the stars: it rose luminous and full of majesty, till it came to the courts of the New Jerusalem to take its place upon the dazzling throne awaiting it among the angels.
"How old, then, is this soul according to the calendar of eternal life?" were the first words addressed St. Michael by the hermit, still on his knees.
And St. Michael graciously replied: "This saint was only twenty-one years old according to the reckoning on earth, but he was a hundred by that of the guardian angels who watch over souls. Not one hour of his short life was lost for eternity. It was not only not lost, but—which is necessary to attain length of years that are meritorious and venerable in our eyes—not one hour failed to be reckoned twice or thrice, and sometimes a hundredfold, by the merit of his deeds of faith, hope, charity, and mortification. Nothing is lost which is pleasing in the eyes of the Lord. A glass of water given with love in his name becomes a majestic river flowing on for ever and ever; while a treasure given without love or from human motives is counted as nothing in the great Book of Life! To really live, thou must love God while exiled here below, as we love him in the home of the blessed. Thou must also love thy neighbor, whose soul reflects the image of its Maker."
With these words the angel disappeared, leaving behind him a long train of light in the dim vaults of the crypt of St. Gerbold.
"O Lord!" cried the hermit "grant me a true knowledge of the Christian life—the only life really worth the name—that at my last hour I may not hear resounding above my head the terrible words, Too young! Teach me, O my God! the value of time, which is only given us that we may lay up treasures for heaven. Time is the money of eternity! time is the price of the Saviour's blood! time, so fleeting, which we seek to kill, and which will surely kill us; time, the inflexible tyrant who spares no one! Oh! that I might in turn triumph over time by making it serve to the sanctification of my soul and the winning of an eternal crown."