the drenching rain, the crackling frost, the howling storm, living a life of daily death and martyrdom, groaning under the load of sin, never attaining to the true comfort and peace of soul which is derived from a child-like trust in Christ's infinite merits, earnestly striving after a supex'human holiness, and looking to a glorious reward in heaven, and immortal fame on earth. Alfred Tennyson makes him graphically describe his experience in a monologue to God : ' Although I be the basest of mankind, From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold Of saintdom, and to clamor, moan, and sob Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer : Have mercy. Lord, and take away my sin. ****** Oh take the meaning, Lord : I do not breathe. Not whisper, any murmur of complaint. Pain heaped ten hundredfold to this, were still Less burthen, by ten hundredfold, to bear, Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crushed My spirit flat before Thee. 0 Lord, Lord, Thou knowest I bore this better at the first, For I was strong and hale of body then ; And though my teeth, which now are dropt away, Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard Was tagged with icy fringes in the moon, I drowned the whoopings of the owl with sound VOL. II. — 13 194 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw An angel stand and watch me, as I sang. Now am I feeble grown : my end draws nigh — I hope my end draws nigh : half deaf I am, So that I scarce can hear the people hum About the column's base ; and almost blind. And scarce can recognize the fields I know. And both my thighs are rotted with the dew, Yet cease I not to clamor and to cry. While my stiff spme can hold my weary head. Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone : Have mercy, mercy ; take away my sin." fet Sjmeon was not only concerned about his own salva- tion. People streamed from afar to witness this standing wonder of the age. He spoke to all classes with the same friendliness, mildness, and love ; only women he never suffered to come within the wall which surrounded his pillar. From this original pulpit, as a mediator between heaven and earth, he preached repentance twice a day to the astonished specta- tors, settled controversies, vindicated the orthodox faith, ex- torted laws even from an emperor, healed the sick, wrought miracles, and converted thousands of lieathen Ishmaelites, Ibe- rians, Armenians, and Persians to Christianity, or at least to the Christian name. All this the celebrated Theodoret relates as an eyewitness during the lifetime of the saint. He terms him the great wonder of the