s, the animals spake and Heaven sent angels
to minister unto them.

_The Pillar Saint_

But the strangest of all strange narratives yet remains. We turn from
Egypt to Asia Minor to make the acquaintance of that saint whom Tennyson
has immortalized,--the idol of monarchs and the pride of the
East,--Saint Simeon Stylites. Stories grow rank around him like the
luxuriant products of a tropical soil. How shall I briefly tell of this
man, whom Theodoret, in his zeal, declares all who obey the Roman rule
know--the man who may be compared with Moses the Legislator, David the
King and Micah the Prophet? He lived between the years 390 and 459 A.D.
He was a shepherd's son, but at an early age entered a monastery. Here
he soon distinguished himself by his excessive austerities. One day he
went to the well, removed the rope from the bucket and bound it tightly
around his body underneath his clothes. A few weeks later, the abbot,
being angry with him because of his extreme self-torture, bade his
companions strip him. What was his astonishment to find the rope from
the well sunk deeply into his flesh. "Whence," he cried, "has this man
come to us, wanting to destroy the rule of this monastery? I pray thee
depart hence."

With great trouble they unwound the rope and the flesh with it, and
taking care of him until he was well, they sent him forth to commence a
life of austerities that was to render him famous. He adopted various
styles of existence, but his miracles and piety attracted such crowds
that he determined to invent a mode of life which would deliver him from
the pressing multitudes. It is curious that he did not hide himself
altogether if he really wished to escape notoriety; but, no, he would
still be within the gaze of admiring throngs. His holy and fanciful
genius hit upon a scheme that gave him his peculiar name. He took up his
abode on the top of a column which was at first about twelve feet high,
but was gradually elevated until it measured sixty-four feet. Hence, he
is called Simeon Stylites, or Simeon the Pillar Saint.

On this lofty column, betwixt earth and heaven, the hermit braved the
heat and cold of thirty years. At its base, from morning to night,
prayed the admiring worshipers. Kings kneeled in crowds of peasants to
do him homage and ask his blessing. Theodoret says, "The Ishmaelites,
coming by tribes of two hundred and three hundred at a time, and
sometimes even a thousand, deny, with shouts, the error