From your own lips it is manifest that
you had not even sound assurance of the guilt you professed to
punish. It may be that the man had not wronged you as you supposed.
A little patience, a little of the calm which becomes a reasoning
soul, and you might not only have saved yourself from crime, but
have resolved what must now ever be a doubt to your harassed
thoughts.'
'Such words did Veranilda herself speak,' exclaimed Basil. 'And I,
in my frenzy, thought them only a lamentation for the death of her
lover.'
'Call it frenzy; but remember, O my son, that no less a frenzy was
every act of your life, and every thought, which led you on the path
to that ultimate sin. Frenzy it is to live only for the flesh;
frenzy, to imagine that any good can come of aught you purpose
without beseeching the divine guidance.'
Much else did the abbot utter in this vein of holy admonition. And
Basil would have listened with the acquiescence of a perfect faith,
but that there stirred within. him the memory of what he had read in
Augustine's pages, darkening his spirit. At length he found courage
to speak of this, and asked in trembling tones:
'Am I one of those born to sin and to condemnation? Am I of those
unhappy beings who strive in vain against a doom predetermined by
the Almighty?'
Benedict's countenance fell; not as if in admission of a dread
possibility, but rather as in painful surprise.
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