er fruit under an awning
of blue-and-white striped canvas, she cried, "Who wants to drink?"
Following the example of this widow, a baker brought some bricks and
made an oven close by, in the hope of selling loaves and cakes to
visitors. As the crowd of visitors increased unceasingly, and the
inhabitants of the large cities of Egypt began to come, some man, greedy
of gain, built a caravanserai to lodge the guests and their servants,
camels, and mules. Soon there was, in front of the column, a market to
which the fishermen of the Nile brought their fish, and the gardeners
their vegetables. A barber, who shaved people in the open air, amused
the crowd with his jokes. The old temple, so long given over to silence
and solitude was filled with countless sights and sounds of life. The
innkeepers turned the subterranean vaults into cellars and nailed on the
old pillars signs surmounted by the figure of the holy Paphnutius, and
bearing this inscription in Greek and Egyptian--"_Pomegranate wine, fig
wine, and genuine Cilician beer sold here_." On the walls, sculptured
with pure and graceful carvings, the shop-keepers hung ropes of onions,
and smoked fish, dead hares, and the carcases of sheep. In the evening,
the old occupants of the ruins, the rats, scuttled in a long row to the
river, whilst the ibises, suspiciously craning their necks, perched on
the high cornices, to which rose the smoke of the kitchens, the shouts
of the drinkers, and the cries of the tapsters. All around, builders
laid out streets, and masons constructed convents, chapels, and
churches. By the end of six months a city was established with a
guardhouse, a tribunal, a prison, and a school, kept by an old blind
scribe.

The pilgrims were innumerable. Bishops and other Church dignitaries,
came, full of admiration. The Patriarch of Antioch, who chanced to be in
Egypt at that time, came with all his clergy. He highly approved of the
extraordinary conduct of the stylite, and the heads of the Libyan Church
followed, in the absence of Athanasius, the opinion of the Patriarch.
Having learned which, Abbots Ephrem and Serapion came to the feet of
Paphnutius to apologise for their former mistrust. Paphnutius replied--

"Know, my brothers, that the penance I endure is barely equal to the
temptations which are sent me, the number and force of which astound
me. A man, viewed externally, is but small, and, from the height of the
pillar to which God has called me, I see hum