"Athens and letters followed on my stage; Others may tell how I encountered them;-- How in the fear of God, and foremost found Of those who knew a more than mortal lore;-- 15 And how, amid the venture and the rush Of maddened youth with youth in rivalry, My tranquil course ran like some fabled spring, Which bubbles fresh beneath the turbid brine; Not drawn away by those who lure to ill, 20 But drawing dear ones to the better part. There, too, I gained a further gift of God, Who made me friends with one of wisdom high, Without compeer in learning and in life. Ask ye his name?--in sooth, 'twas Basil, since 25 My life's great gain,--and then my fellow dear In home, and studious search, and knowledge earned. May I not boast how in our day we moved A truest pair, not without name in Greece; Had all things common, and one only soul 30 In lodgment of a double outward frame? Our special bond, the thought of God above, And the high longing after holy things. And each of us was bold to trust in each, Unto the emptying of our deepest hearts; And then we loved the more, for sympathy Pleaded in each, and knit the twain in one." The friends had been educated for rhetoricians, and their oratorical powers were such, that they 5 seemed to have every prize in prospect which a secular ambition could desire. Their names were known far and wide, their attainments acknowledged by enemies, and they themselves personally popular in their circle of acquaintance. It was 10 under these circumstances that they took the extraordinary resolution of quitting the world together,--extraordinary the world calls it, utterly perplexed to find that any conceivable objects can, by any sane person, be accounted 15 better than its own gifts and favors. They resolved to seek baptism of the Church, and to consecrate their gifts to the service of the Giver. With characters of mind very different--the one grave, the other lively; the one desponding, 20 the other sanguine; the one with deep feelings, the other with feelings acute and warm;--they agreed together in holding, that the things that are seen are not to be compared to the things that are not seen. They quitted the world, while it 25 entreated them to stay.