While still in the prime of his manhood, he was dragged, against his own entreaties, to preside over the laura of Scetis. The elder monks considered it an indignity to be ruled by so young a man; but the monastery throve and grew rapidly under his government. His sweetness, patience, and humility, and, above all, his marvellous understanding of the doubts and temptations of his own generation, soon drew around him all whose sensitiveness or waywardness had made them unmanageable in the neighbouring monasteries. Never was the young Abbot Philammon heard to speak harshly of any human being, and he stopped, by stern rebuke, any attempt to revile either heretics or heathens. One thing was noted, that there mingled always with his prayers the names of two women. And when some worthy elder, taking courage from his years, dared to hint kindly that this caused some scandal to the weaker brethren, "It is true," answered he. "Tell my brethren that I pray nightly for two women, both of them young, both of them beautiful; both of them beloved by me more than I love my own soul; and tell them that one of the two was an actress, and the other a heathen." The old monk laid his hand on his mouth and retired. The remainder of his history it seems better to extract from an unpublished fragment of the lives of the saints. "Now when the said abbot had ruled the monastery of Scetis seven years with uncommon prudence, he called one morning to him a certain ancient brother, and said: 'Make ready for me the divine elements, that I may consecrate them, and partake thereof with all my brethren, ere I depart hence. For know assuredly that within the seventh day, I shall migrate to the celestial mansions.' And the abbot, having consecrated, distributed among his brethren, reserving only a portion of the most holy bread and wine; and then, having bestowed on them all the kiss of peace, he took the paten and chalice in his hands, and went forth from the monastery towards the desert; whom the whole fraternity followed weeping. And having arrived at the foot of a certain mountain, he stopped, and blessing them, dismissed them, and so ascending, was taken away from their eyes. "But the eldest brother sent two of the young men to seek their master, who, meeting with a certain Moorish people, learnt that a priest, bearing a paten and chalice, had passed before them a few days before, crossing the desert in the direction of the cave of the holy Amma. "And they inquiring who this Amma might be, the Moors answered that some twenty years ago there had arrived in those mountains a woman more beautiful than had ever before been seen in that region, who, after distributing among them the rich jewels which she wore, had embraced the hermit's life, and sojourned upon the highest peak of a neighbouring mountain. "Then the two brothers, determining to proceed, arrived upon the summit of the said mountain.