11. Of the devout youth Gerard, who had become a hermit, and of the pilgrims who visited him

There was a certain youth, by name Gerard, a native of the diocese of Cologne, urged by the desire of a soli tary life. Hearing the repute of this holy virgin, he resolved to come to her first to unfold to her in person his purpose, and commend to her prayers the difficult path which he was about to enter, that by the aid of divine grace he might accomplish with saving persever ance the resolution which he had con ceived in his mind. And coming to her, he made known to her the secrets of his heart. And she, piously rejoicing in his purpose, with prophetic spirit foretold that for the first three days of his entry into the wilderness he should suffer want, and then, urging him to constancy, she foretold that after the end of the third day he should receive refreshment from God. Which indeed afterwards came to pass in order. For on the ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM evening of the third day he received a heavenly manna, God taking pity upon his toilsome way. But the three days foretold him by the virgin he went through with such constancy that he was ready, on account of her promise, to pass them even with danger of his life. After mutual conference then and recom mendation in prayer and the compact of fraternal charity, the new recruit, enter ing upon the wars of a new combat, went forth from the presence of the virgin wisely instructed, henceforth never again to see his country and kinsfolk. Having wandered therefore through the northern parts, he enters upper Egypt, and, penetrating its deserts, he finds a cell set in a tree because of the wolves and ferocity of the wild beasts. And he had brought with him two companions, touched by the grace of the same solitary manner of life, who after a few days spent there returned, alas ! to the former things ; but Gerard, most constantly persevering in the purpose he had undertaken, with Christ as leader climbed the heights of contemplation. And so after nearly seventeen years passed in this vast solitude, it happened meanwhile that a ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM certain bishop from the country of England came with two companions to visit the places of the Holy Land, and then went on with them to see the relics of St. Catherine, virgin and martyr, on Mount Sinai. Who, united by like devotion, mindful of the life of the holy fathers in Egypt, entered that land to seek whether perchance they should find any fathers of the hermit life. And when wandering hither and thither they had come even to its upper parts, they find a little cell built in a tree not far from the ground. And knocking at its door, they see in the door opened to them a man of angelic countenance indeed, but of body so stout that he would be deemed as one not mortified in the desert but brought up amid the luxuries of the world. When then they asked whence he lived, he answered that he was nourished by the grace of God alone. For he was wont to gather and eat the heavenly manna, which of old the children of Israel fed upon in the desert, which, coming down upon his cell from above, he took with giving of thanks. They asked also of him whether there were still found other men who lived without human food as also ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM himself, to whom he replied thus : " In the country of Holland, in the city of Schiedam, there is a certain virgin, for many years divinely scourged by divers infirmities, who makes use of no bodily food, who also has arrived at such a height of perfection that she is long ahead of me a hundredfold in holiness of life and sublimity of contemplation. Whence also I much wonder, since I hear nothing of her passing away, what has happened her, because for long I have not seen her on the ladder of contemplation, while formerly we were frequently wont to be rapt together to the heavenly secrets, each on a separate ladder. For she, as by merit of life so also by excellence of contemplation, was wont to rise above me." Then this devout hermit asked the aforesaid pilgrims to visit this virgin in Holland before they returned to their own parts, and from his mouth put her these three questions. First, how many years he had passed in the desert; secondly, of what age he was then when he entered the wilderness ; thirdly, what reason had befallen her that for long he had not seen her in the wonted contemplation. After this the pilgrims, much consoled ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM and edified, bidding- the hermit farewell, returned to Holland and Schiedam. Having entered, therefore, an inn of the town, they ask their host to lead them to the virgin's house. And set in her presence, they make known the cause of their coming and the person of the hermit who had sent them, begging that she reply to the questions put her. But she, preferring to lie hidden through humility than openly answer the ques tions, gave only this response to her questioners, as regards the time of the dwelling of the hermit in the solitude : "How could I know that? It is the Lord who knows." Then they, as re proving her, object, why should she wish to conceal the truth, since they asked these things not of themselves but from the mouth of the hermit. She answered, therefore, that he had passed almost seventeen years in the solitude. To the second, however, she said that he was nineteen years of age when he set out for the desert. To the third also she replied that she, living in the midst of men, was stained in divers ways, but that he, separated from men and living with the angels, kept his purity un touched. " Therefore it is not strange ST. LYDWINE of SCHIEDAM if he excels me in the height of contem plation." It is also said that the hermit assigned the reason of the withdrawal of grace in the virgin that she was wont to grieve too much for the death of her relatives. Which happened at the death of her brother, who had passed away in Schiedam about the same time as the above was related to these pilgrims by the hermit in Egypt. But the same most devout hermit of happy memory, a perfect despiser of earthly things and a sublime contemplator of heavenly secrets, passed away in the year of the Lord's Incarnation, one thousand four hundred and twenty-six, the twelfth day of the month of October. His death and pass ing to glory were revealed to the holy virgin by a vision. For, rapt into Para dise at the hour of his passing, she saw his soul, freed of the body, borne by angels to Paradise, and washed in a fountain so limpid that she seemed to be able to see its depth for nearly a mile.