A Short History of Monks and Monasteries by Alfred Wesley Wishart
page 24 of 331 (07%)
page 24 of 331 (07%)
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down to us, I mean to say all the good of these Egyptian hermits that
the facts will justify. _The Hermits of Egypt_ Egypt was the mother of Christian monasticism, as she has been of many other wonders. Vast solitudes; lonely mountains, honey-combed with dens and caves; arid valleys and barren hills; dreary deserts that glistened under the blinding glare of the sun that poured its heat upon them steadily all the year; strange, grotesque rocks and peaks that assumed all sorts of fantastic shapes to the overwrought fancy; in many places no water, no verdure, and scarcely a thing in motion; the crocodile and the bird lazily seeking their necessary food and stirring only as compelled; unbounded expanse in the wide star-lit heavens; unbroken quiet on the lonely mountains--a fit home for the hermit, a paradise to the lover of solitude and peace. Of life under such conditions Kingsley has said: "They enjoyed nature, not so much for her beauty as for her perfect peace. Day by day the rocks remained the same. Silently out of the Eastern desert, day by day, the rising sun threw aloft those arrows of light which the old Greeks had named 'the rosy fingers of the dawn.' Silently he passed in full blaze above their heads throughout the day, and silently he dipped behind the Western desert in a glory of crimson and orange, green and purple.... Day after day, night after night, that gorgeous pageant passed over the poor hermit's head without a sound, and though sun, moon |
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