Now it was the idea of fleeing far, far away and for ever, from this pagan and pharisaical Rome.

Again it was a vision of peace and pure converse with the woman whom he would win over to the faith at last.

It was an ardent desire to say to the Lord:--"The world is too sad, let me adore Thee thus." Then there came the thought that in all this there was no sin, there was no sin in abandoning his mission in the presence of so many enemies.

He began to doubt whether he really had any mission at all, whether he had not rather yielded to deceitful suggestions, believed in the reality of phantoms, and been deceived by chance appearances.

He saw the spiritual and moral features of his friends and disciples, deformed as in a convex mirror; he felt a disheartening certainty that all he had hoped of them was vain.