For he was a Christian, and
baptised, and often bowed himself before Thee our God in the Church,
in frequent and continued prayers. When then I had told him that I
bestowed very great pains upon those Scriptures, a conversation
arose (suggested by his account) on Antony the Egyptian monk: whose
name was in high reputation among Thy servants, though to that hour
unknown to us. Which when he discovered, he dwelt the more upon that
subject, informing and wondering at our ignorance of one so eminent.
But we stood amazed, hearing Thy wonderful works most fully
attested, in times so recent, and almost in our own, wrought in the
true Faith and Church Catholic. We all wondered; we, that they were so
great, and he, that they had not reached us.
Thence his discourse turned to the flocks in the monasteries, and
their holy ways, a sweet-smelling savour unto Thee, and the fruitful
deserts of the wilderness, whereof we knew nothing. And there was a
monastery at Milan, full of good brethren, without the city walls,
under the fostering care of Ambrose, and we knew it not.
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