Up to the third century, the "Glossology" manifested itself in a manner analogous to that which St. Paul describes, and was considered in the light of a permanent miracle.[4.50] Some of the sublimest words of Christianity have originated in these incoherent sighings. The general effect was touching and penetrating. This fashion of joining together their inspirations and delivering them over to the community for interpretation was enough to establish amongst the faithful a profound bond of confraternity. Like all mystics, the new sectaries led lives of fasting and austerity.[4.51] Like the majority of Orientals, they ate little, which fact contributed to maintain their excited state. The sobriety of the Syrian, caused by physical weakness, kept him in a constant state of fever and nervous susceptibility. Such great and protracted intellectual efforts as ours are impossible under such a regimen; but this cerebral and muscular debility is productive, without apparent cause, of lively alternations of sadness and joy, which bring the soul into continual communion with God. Thus that which they called "godly sorrow"[4.52] passed for a heavenly gift. All the teachings of the Fathers respecting the spiritual life, such as John Chinaticus, as Basil, as Nilus, as Arsenius--all the secrets of the grand art of the inward life, one of the most glorious creations of Christianity--were germinating in that strange state of mind which possessed, in their months of extatic watchfulness, those illustrious ancestors of all "the men of longings." Their moral state was strange; they lived in the supernatural. They acted only on the authority of visions; dreams and the most insignificant circumstances appeared to them to be admonitions from Heaven.[4.53] Under the name of gifts of the Holy Spirit were concealed also the rarest and most exquisite emanations of the soul--love, piety, respectful fear, objectless sighings, sudden languor, and spontaneous tenderness. All the good that is engendered in man, without man having any part in it, was attributed to a breathing from on high. Tears were often taken for a celestial favor. This charming gift, the privilege only of very good and pure souls, was repeated with an infinity of sweetness. We know what influence delicate natures--above all, women--exercise in the ability to shed copious tears. It is their style of praying, and assuredly it is the most holy of prayers. We must come down quite to the Middle Ages, to that piety watered with tears of St. Bruno, St. Bernard, and St. Francis of Assisi, in order to discover again the chaste melancholy of those early days, when they verily sowed in tears that they might reap with joy. To weep became an act of piety; those who could not preach, who were ignorant of languages, and unable to work miracles, wept. Praying, preaching, admonishing they wept;[4.54] it was the advent of the kingdom of tears. One might have said that their souls were