"S. Benedict ordered S. Maur, his faithful disciple, to run quickly and draw the child out. At the word of his master, Maur went away without hesitation, ... and full of confidence in the order he had received, walked upon the water with as much security as upon the earth, and drew Placidus from the whirlpool, which would have swallowed him up. To what shall I attribute so great a miracle, whether to the virtue of the obedience or to that of the commandment? A doubtful question, says S. Gregory, between S. Benedict and S. Maur. But let us say, to decide it, that the obedience had grace to accomplish the command, and that the command had grace to give efficacy to the obedience. Walk, my fathers, upon the waves with the help of obedience; you shall find solid support amid the inconstancy of human things. The waves shall have no power to overthrow you, nor the depths to swallow you up; you shall remain immovable, as if all was firm under your feet, and issue forth victorious." However, Benedict had the ordinary fate of great men and saints. The great number of conversions worked by the example and fame of his austerity, awakened a homicidal envy against him. A wicked priest of the neighbourhood attempted first to decry and then poison him. Being unsuccessful in both, he endeavoured at least to injure him in the object of his most tender solicitude--in the souls of his young disciples. For that purpose he sent, even into the garden of the monastery, where Benedict dwelt, and where the monks laboured, seven wretched women, whose gestures, sports, and shameful nudity, were designed to tempt the young monks to certain fall. When Benedict, from the threshold of his cell, perceived these shameless creatures, he despaired of his work; he acknowledged that the interest of his beloved children constrained him to disarm so cruel an enmity by retreat. He appointed superiors to the twelve monasteries which he had founded, and, taking with him a small number of disciples, he left for ever the wild gorges of Subiaco, where he had lived for thirty-five years.