When I have a strong desire to pray, I go out into the vineyard and work. When I begin to enjoy my work in the vineyard, I cease to do it well. Therefore, I take up my breviary. Do that which you must not do, when you are suffering, and you will not want to do it again, when you are happy. The other day, one who visited the Hermitage, spoke to me of you, O Khalid. He said you were what is called an anarchist. And after explaining to me what is meant by this—I never heard of such a religion before—I discovered to my surprise that I, too, am an anarchist. But there is this difference between us: I obey only God and the authority of God, and you obey your instincts and what is called the authority of reason. Yours, O Khalid, is a narrow conception of anarchy. In truth, you should try to be an anarchist like me: subordinate your personality, your will and mind and soul, to a higher will and intelligence, and resist with all your power everything else. Why do you not come to the Hermitage for a few days and make me your confessor?’
“ ‘I do not confess in private, and I can not sleep within doors.’
“ ‘You do not have to do so; the booth under the almond tree is at your disposal. Come for a spiritual exercise of one week only.’
“ ‘I have been going through such an exercise for a year, and soon I shall leave my cloister in the pines.’
“ ‘What say you? You are leaving our neighbourhood? No, no; remain here, O Khalid. Come, live with me in the Hermitage. Come back to Mother Church; return not to the wicked world. O Khalid, we must inherit the Kingdom of Allah, and we can not do so by being anarchist like the prowlers of the forest. Meditate on the insignificance and evanescence of human life.’
“ ‘But it lies within us, O my Brother, to make it significant and eternal.’
“ ‘Yes, truly, in the bosom of Mother Church. Come back to your Mother—come to the Hermitage—let us pass this life together.’