One of them, in passing,
gave him a smile, and said good-naturedly:
'Thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands; happy shalt thou be, and
it shall be well with thee.'
Weary, but with the sense of healthful fatigue, Basil rested for an
hour on his bed. He then took the Psalter and opened it at hazard,
and the first words his eyes fell upon were:
'Thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands; happy shalt thou be, and
it shall be well with thee.'
'A happy omen,' he thought. But stay; what was this that followed?
'Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house;
thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
'Behold, thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.'
The blood rushed into his cheeks. He sat staring at the open page as
though in astonishment. He read and re-read the short psalm of which
these verses were part, and if a voice had spoken it to him from
above he could scarce have felt more moved by the message. Basil had
never been studious of the Scriptures, and, if ever he had known
that they contained such matter as this, it had quite faded from his
memory.
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