notwithstanding, to our spiritual edification and improvement in
virtue; as we cannot well reflect on his fervor, without condemning and
being confounded at our own indolence in the service of God.

St. Simeon was son to a poor shepherd in Cilicia, on the borders of
Syria, and at first kept his father's sheep. Being only thirteen years
of age, he was much moved by hearing the beatitudes one day read in the
church, particularly these: _Blessed are they that mourn; blessed are
the clean of heart_. The youth addressed himself to a certain old man,
to learn the meaning of those words; and begged to know how the
happiness they promised was to be obtained. He told him that continual
prayer, watching, fasting, weeping, humiliation, and patient suffering
of persecutions, were pointed out by those texts as the road to _true
happiness_; and that a solitary life afforded the best opportunities for
enforcing the practice of these good works, and establishing a man in
solid virtue. Simeon, upon this, withdrew to a small distance, where,
falling prostrate upon the ground, he besought Him, who desires all may
be saved, to conduct him in the paths which lead to happiness and
perfection; to the pursuit of which, under the help of his divine grace,
he unreservedly from that moment devoted himself. At length, falling
into a slumber, he was favored with a vision, which it was usual with
him afterward to relate.. He seemed to himself to be digging a pit for
the foundation of a house, and that, as often as he stopped for taking a
little breath, which was four times, he was commanded each time to dig
deeper, till at length he was told he might desist, the pit being deep
enough to receive the intended foundation, on which he would be able to
raise a superstructure of what kind, and to what height he pleased. "The
event," says Theodoret, "verified the prediction; the actions of this
wonderful man were so superior {090} to nature, that they might well
require the deepest foundation of humility and fervor whereon to raise
and establish them."

Rising from the ground, he repaired {"here paired" in the original text}
to a monastery in that neighborhood under the direction of a holy abbot,
called Timothy, and lay prostrate at the gate for several days, without
either eating or drinking; begging to be admitted on the footing of the
lowest servant in the house, and as a general drudge. His petition was
granted, and he complied with the terms of it wit