LETTER XCIII. Usbek to his Brother, Santon A kind of Mahometan monk. ^†339 in the Monastery of Casbin.

I HUMBLE myself before thee, sacred Santon, and prostrate myself upon the earth: I regard the prints of thy footsteps as the apple of my eye. Thy sanctity is so great, that it seemeth as if thou hadst the heart of our holy prophet; thy austerities astonish even heaven itself: the angels have beheld thee from the summit of glory, and have cried out, how can he yet be upon earth, when his spirit is with us, and flies about the throne which is supported by the clouds? How then can I but honour thee; I who have learned from our doctors, that the dervises, even the infidel ones, have always a sacred character, which renders them respectable to true believers; and that God hath chosen to himself, out of every part of the earth, some souls more pure than others, whom he hath separated from the wicked world, to the end that their mortifications and fervent prayers may suspend his wrath, ready to fall upon so many rebellious people? The

Christians tell wonders of their first Santons, who took sanctuary by thousands in the frightful deserts of Thebais, and had for their chiefs, Paul, Anthony, and Pacomus. If what they say of them be true, their lives were as full of prodigies as those of our most sacred Imaums. They sometimes passed ten entire years without seeing a single person: but they dwelt night and day with dæmons; they were continually tormented by these evil spirits; they found them in their beds, at their tables, they never had any place of security from them. If all this be true, venerable Santon, it must be acknowledged that no person ever lived in worse company. The more sensible Christians regard all these accounts only as a natural allegory, which serves to make us sensible of the miserable state of humanity. In vain do we seek in deserts for a state of ease; temptations follow us every where; our passions, represented by the dæmons, never wholly quit us: these monsters of the heart, these illusions of the mind, these vain phantoms of error and falsehood, appear continually to us, to mislead us, and attack us even in our fasts and hair-cloths, that is, even in our greatest strength. For my part, venerable Santon, I know that the messenger of God hath chained Satan, and precipitated him into the abyss: he hath purified the earth, formerly filled with his power, and hath rendered it worthy of the abode of his angels and prophets.

Paris, the 9th of the moon Chahban,
1715.