Thereafter Paula was the very spring of Bethlehem life and Christian activity. She managed the affairs of her various establishments with patience, tact, and great executive ability; and yet found time to perfect her Greek and to learn Hebrew, so that under the guidance of Jerome she might read the entire Bible in the original tongues. Pilgrims from far and near taxed the resources of the famous hospice, and gifts to innumerable charities at last exhausted even the large fortune she had inherited, so that she became not only poor, but in debt. And reading between the lines of his own correspondence, we can see that not least among the godly woman’s worries was the care of the great, but somewhat crabbed old man whom later centuries were to honor as “Saint” Jerome. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that Christendom is indebted to a woman for its most important and influential version of the Bible; for it is easy to conceive that the Vulgate translation might never have been completed by Jerome, without the constant aid and encouragement which were so freely bestowed on the aged author by his friend. All these varied and exacting tasks were undertaken by one who never enjoyed robust health. Paula was often prostrated by serious illness and she further overtaxed her strength by incessant fasts and mortifications, until at last the life of the eager, self-sacrificing, loving, faithful woman burnt itself out at the age of fifty-six. * * * * * The funeral service is over now. The long procession has left the church, and for three days the poor whom Paula loved can worship at her bier. Then the tender, weary, faithful heart will be laid at rest in a vault beneath the church, “close to the cave of the Lord,” and above her cavern sepulchre lonely old Jerome will inscribe these lines: “Seest thou here hollowed in the rock a grave; ’Tis Paula’s tomb, high heaven has her soul, Who Rome and friends, riches and home forsook Here in this lonely spot to find her rest. For here Christ’s manger was, and here the kings To Him, both God and man, their offerings made.” [Illustration: _THE SCHOLAR IN THE CAVE_] X THE SCHOLAR IN THE CAVE One of the caves beneath the church at Bethlehem has a window; but the small opening is so high up in the wall that very little light enters, and it is some time before the outlines of the room can be clearly distinguished. It is a square cell, about twelve feet across. The window is on the north side. At the west a narrow stairway goes up to the monastery. At the south a door leads through a series of other caves to the Grotto of the Nativity. On the eastern wall hangs a crucifix. In the center of the cell is a roughly-made desk, cluttered with books and papers, while other heavy volumes and thick rolls of manuscript are piled here and there upon the floor.