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Nor do I think it less needful to relate this act of a brother who was
intent on purity of heart, and extremely anxious with regard to the
contemplation of things divine. When after an interval of fifteen years a
large number of letters had been brought to him from his father and mother
and many friends in the province of Pontus, he received the huge packet of
letters, and turning over the matter in his own mind for some time, "What
thoughts," said he, "will the reading of these suggest to me, which will
incite me either to senseless joy or to useless sadness! for how many days
will they draw off the attention of my heart from the contemplation I have
set before me, by the recollection of those who wrote them! How long will
it take for the disturbance of mind thus created to be calmed, and what an
effort will it cost for that former state of peacefulness to be restored,
if the mind is once moved by the sympathy of the letters, and by recalling
the words and looks of those whom it has left for so long begins once more
in thought and spirit to revisit them, to dwell among them and to be with
them. And it will be of no use to have forsaken them in the body, if one
begins to look on them with the heart, and readmits and revives that memory
which on renouncing this world every one gave up, as if he were dead.
Turning this over in his mind, he determined not only not to read a single
letter, but not even to open the packet, for fear lest, at the sight of the
names of the writers, or on recalling their appearance, the purpose of his
spirit might give way. And so he threw it into the fire to be burnt, all
tied up just as he had received it, crying, "Away, O ye thoughts of my
home, be ye burnt up, and try no further to recall me to those things from
which I have fled."
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