While he spoke, his wide open eyes had turned towards Heaven and had acquired a wondrous brightness.  For a short time the two stood opposite each other silent and motionless; at last the anchorite pushed the hair from off his brow, which was now for the first time visible.  It was well-formed, though somewhat narrow, and its clear fairness formed a sharp contrast to his sunburnt face.

“Boy,” he said with a deep breath, “you know not what joys you would sacrifice for the sake of worthless things.  Long ere the Lord, calls the pious man to Heaven, the pious has brought Heaven down to earth in himself.”

Hermas well understood what the anchorite meant, for his father often for hours at a time gazed up into Heaven in prayer, neither seeing nor hearing what was going on around him, and was wont to relate to his son, when he awoke from his ecstatic vision, that he had seen the Lord or heard the angel-choir.

He himself had never succeeded in bringing himself into such a state, although Stephanus had often compelled him to remain on his knees praying with him for many interminable hours.  It often happened that the old man’s feeble flame of life had threatened to become altogether extinct after these deeply soul-stirring exercises, and Hermas would gladly have forbidden him giving himself up to such hurtful emotions, for he loved his father; but they were looked upon as special manifestations of grace, and how should a son dare to express his aversion to such peculiarly sacred acts?  But to Paulus and in his present mood he found courage to speak out.

“I have sure hope of Paradise,” he said, “but it will be first opened to us after death.  The Christian should be patient; why can you not wait for Heaven till the Saviour calls you, instead of desiring to enjoy its pleasures here on earth?  This first and that after!  Why Should God have bestowed on us the gifts of the flesh if not that we may use them?  Beauty and strength are not empty trifles, and none but a fool gives noble gifts to another, only in order to throw them away.”

Paulus gazed in astonishment at the youth, who up to this moment had always unresistingly obeyed his father and him, and he shook his head as he answered,

“So think the children of this world who stand far from the Most High.  In the image of God are we made no doubt, but what child would kiss the image of his father, when the father offers him his own living lips?”

Paulus had meant to say ‘mother’ instead of ‘father,’ but he remembered in time that Hermas had early lost the happiness of caressing a mother, and he had hastily amended the phrase.  He was one of those to whom it is so painful to hurt another, that they never touch a wounded soul unless to heal it, divining the seat of even the most hidden pain.

He was accustomed to speak but little, but now he went on eagerly: