Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/329

] younger man should be chosen as his helper, to hold the Lord's flock together.

The choice fell on me.

Ah!

I was then away on a journey. But in my absence, and without consulting me, my father ordained me a priest and sent me the priestly habit.

These tidings reached me in Tiberina, at my country house, where I was passing some days with my brother and with the friend of my youth, Basil of Caesarea.

Sire—had my sentence of death been read to me, it could not have appalled me more than this.

I a priest! I wished it, and I wished it not. I felt it must be—and yet my courage failed. I wrestled with God the Lord, as the patriarch wrestled with him in the days of the old covenant. What passed in my soul during the night which followed, I cannot tell. But this I know that, ere the cock crew, I talked face to face with the Crucified One.—Then I was his.

Folly, folly; I know those dreams.

On my homeward journey I passed through Caesarea. Oh, what misery met me there! I found the town full of fugitive country people, who had forsaken house and home because the