Pachomius the Great

Struggle, my beloved, for the time is near and the days have been shortened. There is no father who instructs his children, there is no child who obeys his father; good virgins are no longer; the holy fathers have died on all sides; the mothers and the widows are no longer, and we have become like orphans; the humble are crushed underfoot; and blows are showered upon the head of the poor. Therefore there is little to hold back the wrath of God from grieving us, with no one to console us. All this has befallen us because we have not practiced mortification.