In the desert he had looked for God in the flowers that the sun called forth and in the clouds that the wind shepherded, and he had learnt to prize the earth and live content among his sheep, all things being the gift of God and his holy will. He had not placed himself above the flowers and grasses of the earth, nor the sheep that fed upon them, nor above the men that fed upon the sheep. He had striven against the memory of his sin, he had desired only one thing, to acknowledge his sin, and to repent. But it seemed to him that anger and shame and sorrow, and desire of repentance had dropped out of his heart. It seemed to him as he turned and pursued his way that some new thought was striving to speak through him. Rites and observances, all that comes under the name of religion estranges us from God, he repeated. God is not here, nor there, but everywhere: in the flower, and in the star, and in the earth underfoot. He has often been at my elbow, God or this vast Providence that upholds the work; but shall we gather the universal will into an image and call it God?--for by doing this do we not drift back to the starting-point of all our misery? We again become the dupes of illusion and desire; God and his heaven are our old enemies in disguise. He who yields himself to God goes forth to persuade others to love God, and very soon his love of God impels him to violent words and cruel deeds. It cannot be else, for God is but desire, and whosoever yields to desire falls into sin. To be without sin we must be without God. Jesus stood before the door of the cenoby, startled at the thoughts that had been put into his mind, asking himself if any man had dared to ask himself if God were not indeed the last uncleanliness of the mind. CHAP. XXXI.