Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/135

 for I was to fast three days longer. My little bed was made up on the marble floor of the church. At night, another was arranged beside it for my mother, since I could not be induced to sleep alone in the church.

During the three days spent in the mountains I forgot completely that I was a person holding advanced ideas, and that I did not believe in superstitions. There was something in the atmosphere of the place which forbade analysis and called only for devotion.

My mother and I were the only persons who slept in the church. There were a number of insane patients in the monastery itself. St George of the Bells is renowned for the number of cures of insanity which he effects. The head monk, as a rule, is a man of considerable education and shrewdness, with no mean knowledge of medicine. The insane patients are under his care for forty days, with the grace of St George. They practically live out of doors, take cold baths, dress lightly, and eat food of the simplest. In addition to this they received mystic shocks to help on their recovery, and, I believe, usually regain their mental equilibrium.

While I was staying at the monastery a young man was brought there from Greece. He was a great student of literature, and very dissipated. The two combined had sent him to St George. He was a handsome fellow, with long white