ience, that he was regarded as another
Moses in that holy place.

St. John was now seventy-five years old, and had spent forty of them in
{679} his hermitage, when, in the year six hundred, he was unanimously
chosen abbot of Mount Sinai, and superior-general of all the monks and
hermits in that country. Soon after he was raised to this dignity, the
people of Palestine and Arabia, in the time of a great drought and
famine, made their application to him as to another Elias, begging him
to intercede with God in their behalf. The saint failed not with great
earnestness to recommend their distress to the Father of mercies, and
his prayer was immediately recompensed with abundant rains. St. Gregory
the Great., who then sat in St. Peter's chair, wrote to our holy
abbot,[4] recommending himself to his prayers, and sent him beds, with
other furniture and money, for his hospital, for the use of pilgrims
near Mount Sinai. John, who had used his utmost endeavors to decline the
pastoral charge, when he saw it laid upon him, neglected no means which
might promote the sanctification of all those who were entrusted to his
care. That posterity might receive some share in the benefit of his holy
instructions, John, the learned and virtuous abbot of Raithu, a
monastery-situate towards the Red Sea, entreated him by that obedience
he had ever practised, even with regard to his inferiors, that he would
draw up the most necessary rules by which fervent souls might arrive at
Christian perfection. The saint answered him, that nothing but extreme
humility could have moved him to write to so miserable a sinner,
destitute of every sort of virtue; but that he received his commands
with respect, though far above his strength, never considering his own
insufficiency. Wherefore, apprehensive of falling into death by
disobedience, he took up his pen in haste, with great eagerness mixed
with fear, and set himself to draw some imperfect outlines as an
unskilful painter, leaving them to receive from him, as a great master,
the finishing strokes. This produced the excellent work which he called
Climax, or the ladder of religious perfection. This book being written
in sentences, almost in the manner of aphorisms, abounds more in sense
than words. A certain majestic simplicity, an inexpressible unction and
spirit of humility, joined with conciseness and perspicuity, very much
enhance the value of this performance: but its chief merit consists in
the sublime