Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/344

322 me, surrounded by a crowd of demons mocking me with shrieks of laughter. The louder they laughed, the sadder I was, seeing them gathered to destroy me. When they saw that I would not laugh, they became enraged, crying, 'So! you won't laugh and be merry with us! Since you choose melancholy you shall have enough.' Then flying about me, with blows from all sides, they whirled me round and round with them over vast spaces of earth, till I thought to die. Suffering unspeakably, I was at length set down on the top of a peak which scarcely held me; no eye could fathom its abyss. Vainly I looked for a descent, and the demons kept flying about me, saying: 'Where now is your hope in God! And where is that God of yours! Don't you know that neither God is, as men say, nor is there any power in Him which can prevail against us? One proof of this is that you have no help, and there is no one who can deliver you from our hands. Choose now; for unless you join with us you shall be cast into the abyss.' In this strait, scarcely consenting or resisting, I faintly remembered that I had once believed and read that God was everywhere, and so I looked around to see whether He would not send some aid. Now when the demons kept insisting that I should choose, and when I was well-nigh put to it to promise what they wished, a man suddenly appeared, and, standing by me, said: 'Do not do it; all that these cheats say is false. Abide firm in that faith which you had in God. He knows all that you suffer, and permits it for your good.' Then he vanished, and the demons returned, flying about me, and saying: Miserable man, would you trust one who came to deceive you? Why, he dared not wait till we came! Come now, yield yourself to our power.'

"Uttering these words with fury, they snatched me up, and whirled me, sorely beaten, across plains and deserts, over heights and precipices, and set me on a yet more dreadful peak, hurling at me abuse and threats, to make me do their will. And, as before, I was near succumbing, and was looking around for some aid from God, when that same man again stood near, and heartened me. 'Do not yield; let your heart be comforted against its besiegers.' And I replied: 'Lord, I can no longer bear these perils. Stay with me, and aid, lest when you go away they torment me still more grievously.' To which he said: 'Their threats cannot prevail so long as you persevere in faith and hope in the Lord. Be comforted; the sharper the strife, the quicker will it end. If with constancy you wage the Lord's battles, you shall have eternal rewards in the future, and in this world you shall be famous.

"Then he vanished the second time, and the demons, who dared do nothing in his presence, raged and mocked more savagely, and kept me in anguish, until, the divine grace effecting it, the convent bell rang for early prayer. I heard it as I lay in bed, and gradually