ORIGIN OF MONACHISM. 185 



other worldlings by nothing except their habit, their 

 cowl, and by an empty glory in the merits of their firft 

 founder. 



A glorious moral maxim alfo once on a time pro- 

 ceeded from the mouth of Antonius, when the monks 

 had been feverely rebuking a brother on account of 

 fome tranfgreffion. The delinquent came to Antonius 

 'complaining of the hard treatment he had received ; 

 the reft of the monks galloped up to him, to pull him 

 away, and abufed him more groffly in the prefence of 

 Antonius. All this happened when St. Paphnutius ac- 

 cidentally was there. On hearing the horrid noife, 

 he faid to the monks : I once faw on the banks of a 

 river, a man fticking up to the knees in a bog, fome 

 perfons coming up, reached out their hands to draw 

 him forth, and in this attempt only plunged him in 

 farther, even up to the chin. This is truely fpoken, 

 returned Antonius ; I perceive, Paphnutius, that thou 

 underftandeft how fouls are delivered. 



From the pleafure I take in citing fuch noble 

 touches, every impartial reader will fee, that I am not 

 uncandid towards St. Antonius. In all my life it never 

 coft me any effort to relate what I faw that was really 

 great and good, of a man whofe weaknefTes I knew 

 and difcovered, as foon as I faw fomething great and 

 good. But the fanatics that take Antonius for a man 

 who through the whole courfe of his life had the intellect 

 of an angel, are enabled now to fee how they differ 

 from me, as I Ihew them fo plainly, that there were 

 many and long periods in the life of this renowned 

 Egyptian boor, in which he was wrong in the head. 



Folly 



