Zozimus extended his arms.

“Look, venerable father!  On both sides of the horizon are long, black files that look like emigrant ants.  They are our brothers, who, like us, are going to meet Anthony.”

When they came to the place of meeting, they saw a magnificent spectacle.  The army of monks extended, in three ranks, in an immense semicircle.  In the first rank stood the old hermits of the desert, cross in hand, and with long beards that almost touched the ground.  The monks, governed by the abbots Ephrem and Serapion, and also all the cenobites of the Nile, formed the second line.  Behind them appeared the ascetics, who had come from their distant rocks.  Some wore, on their blackened and dried-up bodies, shapeless rags; others had for their only clothes, bundles of reeds held together by withies.  Many of them were naked, but God had covered them with a fell of hair as thick as a sheep’s fleece.  All held branches of palm; they looked like an emerald rainbow, or they might have been also compared to the host of the elect—­the living walls of the city of God.

Such perfect order reigned in the assembly, that Paphnutius found, without difficulty, the monks he governed.  He placed himself near them, after having taken care to hide his face under his hood, that he might remain unknown, and not disturb them in their pious expectation.  Suddenly, an immense shout arose—­

“The saint!” they all cried.  “The saint!  Behold the great saint, against whom hell has not prevailed, the well-beloved of God!  Our father, Anthony!”

Then a great silence followed, and every forehead was lowered to the sand.

From the summit of a dune, in the vast void space, Anthony advanced, supported by his beloved disciples, Macarius and Amathas.  He walked slowly, but his figure was still upright, and showed the remains of a superhuman strength.  His white beard spread over his broad chest, his polished skull reflected the rays of sunlight like the forehead of Moses.  The keen gaze of the eagle was in his eyes; the smile of a child shone on his round cheek.  To bless his people, he raised his arms, tired by a century of marvellous works, and his voice burst forth for the last time, with the words of love.

“How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!”

Immediately, from one end to the other of the living wall, like a peal of harmonious thunder, the psalm, “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord,” broke forth.

Accompanied by Macarius and Amathas, Anthony passed along the ranks of the old hermits, anchorites, and cenobites.  This seer, who had beheld heaven and hell; this hermit, who from a cave in the rock, governed the Christian Church; this saint, who had sustained the faith of the martyrs; this scholar, whose eloquence had paralysed the heretics, spoke tenderly to each of his sons, and bade them a kindly farewell, on the eve of the blessed death, which God, who loved him, had at last promised him.