Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/149

Rh leprous had discharged their disease by touching the garments of the holy but silent man. So when Napoleon came to Moscow, the crowd appealed to Seraphim to work a miracle.

"They are burning our sacred shrines," they cried, "they are using our cathedrals as places of execution, they are murdering our priests and our pilgrims. Is it naught to thee, Father?"

But Seraphim was silent.

And others said, "He is called Napoleon, but he is in reality Antichrist. Lead us, O Seraphim, against him in the name of the Lord."

But Seraphim was silent. His face retained unchanged its look of exaltation; his uplifted eyes still seemed bent on some unearthly vision; his attentive ears seemed to be listening to some other voices. The old monk never spoke a word. Napoleon and the world had no power to shatter his vision. Napoleons might come and go, but the truth to which he was a witness remained unchanging, unchanged. And if Napoleon had come to Sarof and pulled the hermitage down about Seraphim's ears, the old monk would still have prayed on in silence.

Almost every characteristic of the Father and every circumstance of his life had something in it that is emblematic and suggestive. In his old age, when he became so famous, he received thousands of letters, most of which, however, he answered without opening! It is told how in his old age the light of sainthood shone from his brow, and on