DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0291
276 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
on this sacred spot the followers of Christ and Mo*
hammed have united in worshipping the true and
living God. Under the chapel is a hermit's cell,
"where, in the iron age of fanaticism, the anchorite
lingered out his days in fasting, meditation, and
prayer.
In the East, the fruitful parent of superstition,
occurred the first instances of monastic life. A
single enthusiast withdrew himself from the so-
ciety of his fellow-men, and wandered for years
among the rocks and sands of the desert, devo-
ting himself to the service of his Maker by the mis-
taken homage of bodily mortification. The deep
humility of the wanderer, his purity and sincerity,
and the lashes and stripes he inflicted upon his
worn and haggard body, excited the warm imagi-
nations of the Christians of the East. Others, tor-
tured by the same overpowering consciousness of
sin, followed his example, emulating each other in
self-punishment; and he was accounted the most
holy, and the most worthy to be received at the
right hand of God, who showed himself most dead
to all the natural feelings of humanity. The des-
erts of the Thebaid were soon covered with her-
mits ; and more than 70,000 anchorites were wast-
ing their lives in the gloomy wilds of Sinai, start-
ling the solitude with the cries of their self-inflicted
torture. The ruins of their convents are still to
be seen upon the rudest mountain side, in the most
savage chasm, or upon the craggiest top; and,
strange as the feeling may seem, my very soul
on this sacred spot the followers of Christ and Mo*
hammed have united in worshipping the true and
living God. Under the chapel is a hermit's cell,
"where, in the iron age of fanaticism, the anchorite
lingered out his days in fasting, meditation, and
prayer.
In the East, the fruitful parent of superstition,
occurred the first instances of monastic life. A
single enthusiast withdrew himself from the so-
ciety of his fellow-men, and wandered for years
among the rocks and sands of the desert, devo-
ting himself to the service of his Maker by the mis-
taken homage of bodily mortification. The deep
humility of the wanderer, his purity and sincerity,
and the lashes and stripes he inflicted upon his
worn and haggard body, excited the warm imagi-
nations of the Christians of the East. Others, tor-
tured by the same overpowering consciousness of
sin, followed his example, emulating each other in
self-punishment; and he was accounted the most
holy, and the most worthy to be received at the
right hand of God, who showed himself most dead
to all the natural feelings of humanity. The des-
erts of the Thebaid were soon covered with her-
mits ; and more than 70,000 anchorites were wast-
ing their lives in the gloomy wilds of Sinai, start-
ling the solitude with the cries of their self-inflicted
torture. The ruins of their convents are still to
be seen upon the rudest mountain side, in the most
savage chasm, or upon the craggiest top; and,
strange as the feeling may seem, my very soul