The monastic institutions of Egypt had already reached their full growth. They were acknowledged by the laws of the empire as ecclesiastical corporations, and allowed to hold property; and by a new law of this reign, if a monk or nun died without a will or any known kindred, the property went to the monastery as heir at law. One of the most celebrated of these monasteries was on Tabenna, where Pachomius had gathered round him thirteen hundred followers, who owned him as the founder of their order, and gave him credit for the gift of prophecy. His disciples in the other monasteries of Upper Egypt amounted to six thousand more. Anuph was at the head of another order of monks, and he boasted that he could by prayer obtain from heaven whatever he wished. Hor was at the head of another monastery, where, though wholly unable to read or write, he spent his life in singing psalms, and, as his followers and perhaps he himself believed, in working miracles. Sera-pion was at the head of a thousand monks in the Ar-sinoite nome, who raised their food by their own labour, and shared it with their poorer neighbours. Near Nitria, a place in the Mareotic nome which gave its name to the nitre springs, there were as many as fifty cells; but those who aimed at greater solitude and severer mortification withdrew farther into the desert, to Scetis in the same nome, a spot already sanctified by the trials and triumphs of St. Anthony. Here, in a monastery surrounded by the sands, by the side of a lake whose waters are Salter than the brine of the ocean, with no grass or trees to rest the aching eye, where the dazzling sky is seldom relieved with a cloud, where the breezes are too often laden with dry dust, these monks cultivated a gloomy religion, with hearts painfully attuned to the scenery around them. Here dwelt Moses, who in his youth had been a remarkable sinner, and in his old age became even more remarkable as a saint. It was said that for six years he spent every night in prayer, without once closing his eyes in sleep; and that one night, when his cell was attacked by four robbers, he carried them all off at once on his back to the neighbouring monastery to be punished, because he would himself hurt no man. Benjamin also dwelt at Scetis; he consecrated oil to heal the diseases of those who washed with it, and during the eight months that he was himself dying of a dropsy, he touched for their diseases all who came to the door of his cell to be healed. Hellas carried fire in his bosom without burning his clothes. Elias spent seventy years in solitude on the borders of the Arabian desert near Antinoopolis. Apelles was a blacksmith near Achoris; he was tempted by the devil in the form of a beautiful woman, but he scorched the tempter's face with a red-hot iron. Dorotheus, who though a Theban had settled near Alexandria, mortified his flesh by trying to live without sleep. He never willingly lay down to rest, nor indeed ever slept till