Curiosities of Olden Times
society of these women, or among the female servants of the wealthy citizens?
Early in the morning Symeon was wont to leave his hut, twine a garland of herbs, break a bough from a tree, and thus crowned and sceptred enter the city. John the Deacon asked the monk how it was that he never saw him having his hair cut, nor with his hair long. Symeon assured him that this was in answer to prayer. He had supplicated Heaven that he might be saved the trouble of having recourse to a barber, and Heaven had heard him; all which John the Deacon fully believed.
When death approached, Symeon revisited his friend John in the wilderness, who probably did not find his old comrade much improved in morals and manners by his residence in town.
He then returned to Emesa, and was found dead one morning under his bundle of faggots.
The remarks of Alban Butler are not a little amusing. "Although we are not obliged in every instance to imitate St. Symeon, and though it would be rash even to attempt it without a special call; yet his example ought to make us blush"—we should think so, indeed—"when we consider"—ah!—"with what an ill-will we suffer the least things that hurt our pride." Symeon slipped into the Roman Martyrology by an inadvertency. Let us trust that at the next revision, he may be turned out.
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