When they had finished they came to Antony, dropped their necks, and licked his hands and feet, as if praying for a blessing. Antony praised God, who taught the dumb animals, and without whose word not a leaf drops nor one sparrow falls to the ground; and then signing with his hand to the lions, they went away peaceably to the desert from which they came. ST. JEROME'S REFLECTIONS ON PAUL THE HERMIT. St. Jerome, after narrating the life and death of Paul, the first hermit, thus concludes: "I am inclined at the end of my treatise to ask those who know not the extent of their patrimonies, who cover their houses with marbles, who sew the price of whole farms into their garments with a single thread, What was ever wanting to this naked old man? Ye drink from a gem; he satisfied nature from the hollow of his hands. Ye weave gold into your tunics, he had not even the vilest garment of your bondslave. But, on the other hand, to that poor man Paradise is open; you, gilded as you are, Gehenna will receive. He, though naked, kept the garment of Christ; you, clothed in silk, have lost Christ's robe. Paul lies covered with the meanest dust to rise in glory; you are crushed by wrought sepulchres of stone, to burn with all your works. Spare, I beseech you, yourselves; spare at least the riches which you love. Why do you wrap even your dead in golden vestments? Why does not ambition stop amid grief and tears? Cannot the corpses of the rich decay save in silk? I beseech thee, whosoever thou art that readest this, to remember Jerome the sinner, who, if the Lord gave him choice, would much sooner choose Paul's tunic with his merits than the purple of kings with their punishments." ST. JEROME WITH THE LION AND THE ASS.