Abraham was the son of very wealthy parents at Chidama, in Mesopotamia, near the city of Edessa. His father sought a young and beautiful girl in marriage for his son, and Abraham was married to her with all the pomp befitting the splendour of the rank and wealth and the family. The young man had now tasted all that the world could give, riches, honour, and love, and his heart was still void and craving for something more. Then he felt, with a conviction it was impossible to resist, that God alone could fill that void, and that satisfaction could alone be found in serving Him most perfectly. So, secretly in the night, seven days after his marriage, he escaped, and hid himself in the desert. His parents, who had refused him nothing for which he had expressed a wish, his wife, who had given him no occasion of offence, were in amazement. They searched for him everywhere, and at the end of seventeen days discovered him in the desert, resolved to live alone. It was in vain that parents and bride urged him to return; he was inexorable, and they were obliged to leave him in his solitude. He had found a small hut, and now he walled up the door, leaving only a window, through which bread and water could be passed in to him by a friend. He had spent ten or twelve years in this retreat when his parents died, and left their immense property to him. He entrusted it to the care of his most intimate friends, to be used for relieving the necessities of the poor. Now there was, not far off, a village of idolaters, who had stubbornly resisted every missionary effort made to convert them. The bishop of Edessa bethought him of Abraham the hermit, visited him in person, and insisted on his coming forth and preaching to these heathen. In vain did the hermit implore to be permitted to remain in his dear solitude: the bishop put the matter on his obedience, brought him forth, ordained him priest, and sent him amongst the pagans. Abraham then built a church in their midst, and finding that they were deaf to his exhortations, he spent his nights and days in tearful intercession for them, and then, armed with zeal, he rushed upon their idols and overthrew them. A mob at once assembled, and he was beaten till he could not move; and whenever he appeared in the streets, he was assailed with sticks and stones. Undeterred by this opposition, Abraham continued instant in prayer; and, after three years, saw the tide of popular opinion turn, and the villagers who had treated him so ill, now venerated him as an apostle of the truth. Abraham tarried with them another year, to confirm them in the faith, then commended them to the supervision of the bishop, and returned to his cell. Now it happened that a little girl, named Mary, the niece of Abraham, had been left an orphan, and she was brought to the hermit, as her sole relative, to educate. She was aged seven. Abraham bade a cell be built for her near his own, and there the child grew up under his supervision till she was