to hiy hands on the saint of the wilderness. In the year 351, when a hundred years old, lie showed himself for the second and last time in the metropolis of Egypt, to bear witness for the orthodox faith of his friend Athanasius against Arianism, and in a few days con- verted more heathens and heretics than had otherwise been gained in a whole year. He declared the Arian denial of the divinity of Christ worse than the venom of the serpent, and no better than heathenism which worshipped the creatnre instead of the Creator. He would have nothing to do with heretics, and warned his disciples against intercourse with them. Ath- anasius attended him to the gate of the city, where he cast out an evil spirit from a girl. An invitation to stay longer in Alexandria he declined, saying : " As a fish out of water, so a monk out of his solitiide dies." Imitating his example, the monks afterward forsook the wilderness in swarms whenever orthodoxy was in danger, and went in long processions with wax tapers and responsive singing through the streets, or ap- peared at the councils, to contend for the orthodox faith with all the energy of fanaticism, often even with physical force. Though Anthony shunned the society of men, yet he was frequently visited in his solitude and resorted to for consolation and aid by Christians and heathens, by ascetics, sick, and needy, as a heaven-descended physician of Egypt for body and soul. He enjoined prayer, labor, and care of the poor, exhort- ed those at strife to the love of God, and healed the sick and demoniac with his prayer. Athanasius relates several miracles performed by him, the truth of which we leave undecided, though they are far less incredible and absurd than many other monkish stories of that age. Anthony, his biographer assures us, never boasted when his prayer was heard, nor murmured when it was not, but in either case thanked God. lie cau- tioned monks against overrating the gift of miracles, since it is not our work, but the grace of the Lord ; and he reminds them of the word: "Rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in 186 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. heaven." To Martianiis, an officer, who urgently besought him to heal his possessed daughter, he said : " Man, why dost thou call on me ? I am a man, as thou art. If thou believest, pray to God, and he will hear thee." Martianus prayed, and on his return found his daughter whole. Anthony distinguished himself above most of his countless disciples and successors, by his fresh originality of mind. Though uneducated and limited, he had sound sense and ready mother wit. Many of his striking answers and felicitous sen- tences have come down to us. When some heathen philoso- phers once visited him, he asked them : " Why do you give