doctrines of the Christian faith and the Gospel history, and spread
abroad, among the heathen round, a number of delicate and graceful
hymns, which remain to this day, and of which some have lately been
translated into English. {160} Soft, sad, and dreamy as they were,
they had strength and beauty enough in them to supersede the Gnostic
hymns of Bardesanes and his son Harmonius, which had been long
popular among the Syrians; and for centuries afterwards, till
Christianity was swept away by the followers of Mahomet, the Syrian
husbandman beguiled his toil with the pious and plaintive melodies
of St. Ephrem.

But Ephrem was not only a hermit and a poet: he was a preacher and
a missionary. If he wept, as it was said, day and night for his own
sins and the sins of mankind, he did his best at least to cure those
sins. He was a demagogue, or leader of the people, for good and not
for evil, to whom the simple Syrians looked up for many a year as
their spiritual father. He died in peace, as he said himself, like
the labourer who has finished his day's work, like the wandering
merchant who returns to his fatherland, leaving nothing behind him
save prayers and counsels, for "Ephrem," he added, "had neither
wallet nor pilgrim's staff."

"His last utterance" (I owe this fact to M. de Montalembert's book,
"Moines d'Occident") "was a protest on behalf of the dignity of man
redeemed by the Son of God."

"The young and pious daughter of the Governor of Edessa came weeping
to receive his latest breath. He made her swear never again to be
carried in a litter by slaves, 'The neck of man,' he said, 'should
bear no yoke save that of Christ.'" This anecdote is one among many