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THE PEARL AMONG THE VIRTUES
evil; the fool leapeth over, and is confident," says Holy Scripture.
Example. Benedict, who was born in the year of our Lord 480, spent the first years of his youth in the quiet retirement of country life.—When he afterwards went to Rome to attend the public schools, the depravity of this city, still partly heathen, and especially of his fellow-students, made such an impression upon the innocent child, that at the age of fourteen he left Rome and retired into the solitude of the Simbrivinian mountains. There he lived in a grotto given up to prayer and penance; and directed by the Holy Ghost, prepared himself for the great and important vocation that God had
