Serapion and his companions were, all save one, monks of the Abbey of the Holy Face.  Not the first Abbey of that name, in the warm green woods in the western creek of Broce-Liande, but the second, which is nearer to the sunrise.  For the site of the first Abbey was most delightful, and so sheltered from the weary wind of the west, and so open to the radiance of the morning, that, save it were Paradise, no man could come at a place so gracious and delectable.  There earliest broke the land into leaf and blossom; and there the leaf was last to fall; and there one could not die, not even the very aged.  Wherefore, in order that the long years of their pilgrimage might be shortened, the brethren prevailed on the Abbot to remove to another site, nearer the spring of the day; and in this new house, one by one in due season, they were caught up to the repose of the heavens, the aged fathers dying first, as is seemly.