' Yea, brother,
I know it to be a fact that the ungodly have sometimes destroyed holy
men, like our Superior, who could not be induced to taste wine for
any worldly purpose, by drugging the blessed cup; so dreadful are the
ragings of Satan in our corrupt nature!"
"I can't see into that," said Father Anselmo, still looking confused.
"Brother," answered Father Johannes, "permit an unworthy sinner to
remind you that you must not try to see into anything; all that is
wanted of you in our most holy religion is to shut your eyes and
believe; all things are possible to the eye of faith. Now, humanly
speaking," he added, with a peculiarly meaning look, "who would believe
that you kept all the fasts of our order, and all the extraordinary ones
which it hath pleased our blessed Superior to lay upon us, as you surely
do? A worldling might swear, to look at you, that such flesh and color
must come in some way from good meat and good wine; but we remember how
the three children throve on the pulse and rejected the meat from the
king's table."
The countenance of Father Anselmo expressed both anger and alarm at
this home-thrust, and the changes did not escape the keen eye of Father
Johannes, who went on.
"I directed the eyes of our holy father upon you as a striking example
of the benefits of abstemious living, showing that the days of miracles
are not yet past in the Church, as some skeptics would have us believe.
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