the outer world, and another and less | hearts; and when he fell, at the bidimportant church was erected close by ding of a tyrannical and unscrupulous king, the victim of a false and unjust cry, his fate was almost unpitied and well-nigh unnoticed.

for worshippers who belonged not to the charmed circle of professed monks. When the day of destruction arrived, the mass of the people cared little or Monastic Christianity finds its most nothing about the ruin of a building complete expression in that small manfrom which they had been always ex-ual of devotion put out in the fifteenth cluded. The notion sank deeply into century, known as "The Imitation of the heart of the monk that the object Christ." Its boundless popularity reof his dedication to the religious life was to secure his own salvation, with little reference to the spiritual needs of the world outside.

Self-centred, having few interests outside those cloistered walls where they proposed to pass their lives, under the shadow of which they hoped to die, they regarded themselves as a chosen band, they believed themselves to be moving heavenwards as a company and all together; the whole notion underlying their existence was that of each helping the others within the narrow limits of the community.

On the other hand, their religion had hardly any outward tendency; they had no Vocation to save the outer world. The monks hardly realized that those outside were their brethren, hungry and naked, full of needs and sufferings; the provision for their stately church, their community,

their administration, made them hard and unfeeling towards others; and this was fostered and aggravated by their own firm belief that they were, in a sense, especially God's elect, the heirs of safety here and of salvation hereafter.

minds us, said Dean Milman, that it supplies some imperious want in the Christianity of mankind; but, like monasticism, of which it is the perfect exponent,

aims as in its acts; its sole, single, excluit is absolutely and entirely selfish in its sive object is the purification, the elevation of the individual soul, of the man absolutely isolated from his kind, with no fears, no hopes, no sympathies of our common nature; he has absolutely withdrawn himself, not only from the cares, the sins, the trials, but from the duties, the moral and religious fate of the world.

The Dean of St. Paul's summary of the spirit of the famous "Manual" in connection with the aims of monasticism is remarkable; and although some who love the book may be pained by Milman's words, they are worth pondering over.

It was the knowledge of this fatal error which suggested to Dominic and Francis and their companions, in the early years of the thirteenth century, the idea of founding the Mendicant This was the deliberate opinion of Orders. The acknowledged aim of the Dean Kitchin, one of the most thought- Dominican and Franciscan friar was ful of our modern scholars in monastic to spread abroad those glad tidings lore, and this opinion is shared by which the Benedictine chose mainly to other students of our time; and though confine within the walls of his own perhaps in the above-quoted words it religious house. "Their primary obis somewhat exaggerated and unduly ject, different from the Benedictine pressed, their estimate contains much ideal, was not the salvation of the intruth, and the downfall of monasticism dividual monk, but the salvation of in England is no doubt very largely others through him." The rapid due to the undoubted existence of this growth of the popularity of the friars is stern spirit of exclusiveness. The a sufficient indication that in some remonk, notwithstanding his splendid spects at least they had found the key record of service done to religion, to to the hearts of the people; nor is it art, to letters, and indeed to well-nigh too much to say that the coming of everything that made life beautiful and the friars put off the downfall of desirable in a nation, had failed in the monasticism in England for two cenlong run to find the key to the people's turies.

sidered reform of undoubted abuses,
and the lands and goods of the monas-
" from
tic orders were seized by men
whose minds," to use Canon Dixon's
words,

Another grave accusation levelled at many another project of well-conthe Benedictines charges them with neglecting the churches on their broad lands and allowing them to be but imperfectly and inadequately served by inferior members of their own community, or by illiterate and poorly paid priests appointed by them. This subject has as yet never been thoroughly investigated, but the language used by some of our modern writers in their review of this charge is inexcusable, and unwarranted by the facts of the case, so far as they are kuowu. Mr. IIunt, in his lucid and interesting account of the Priory of Bath, speaks of these churches on the monastic and other lands, thus:

nothing was further than to restore the appropriations; and the incumbents of monastic and other benefices, instead of being better off, found themselves (after the great confiscation) sunk in a penury which grew greater with every successive generation.

But

To many a thinker, perhaps to the majority, in the sixteenth century, the work of the monasteries seemed finished. Be this how it may, through the long, dark period of the Middle The system of appropriation of revenues Ages, these monastic foundations had which properly belonged to certain churches rendered incalculable service to Chrisgrew to its full extent by degrees, and was tianity and to civilization. If, as many a general abuse. It was much ameliorated think, it were well- their work being by the ordination of vicarages, by which in done that in the sixteenth century each case a fixed portion of the revenues of they should disappear and give place his church was secured to the parish priest, to others, it is only common justice to the remainder being allotted to the monas-lift off the veil of undeserved obloquy tery. with which the authors of their downThat men of an inferior calibre belong-fall, for their own mean purposes, have ing to the house or elsewhere were disfigured their memory. generally appointed to these benefices, The accusations against the moral seems a baseless assertion. It will be character of the monk were made in remembered, for instance, in the well-order that men might welcome the known "Memoirs of Jocelyn de Brake- dissolution of the monasteries. londa," how desirous the monk the charges were for the most part Sampson, one of the ablest of the baseless. The evidence of the visitors brethren of the great monastery of of Henry VIII. breaks down when St. Edmund at Bury, was to obtain the carefully examined. The visitors living of Woolpit, which belonged to themselves were men of far from uuhis house. The charge-if properly blemished character. Their testimony, substantiated, a grave one-of appoint- such as it was, only applied to a very ing inferior and ill-qualified persons to small proportion of the houses accused. cures of souls, most likely grew out of The so-called "Confessions" they prothe state of things which followed the duced were infinitesimally few in numravages of the Black Death. ber, and bore unmistakable signs of being simply cut-and-dried documents. The usual stock stories of the iniquity of monks and nuns were clearly pieces of slanderous gossip, and even King Henry's summary in the preamble to the act of 1536 bore testimony in the strongest terms to the pure state of many "great and solemn " monasteries, all of which, without exception, shared in the common ruin.

Some steps had been taken by Parliament to mitigate the abuses which undoubtedly existed in the matter of parish churches belonging to the monasteries in the reigns of Richard II. and Henry IV. But they proved ineffectual. In 1529 Convocation ordered that the abuses of monastic appropriations should be investigated and amended. The great confiscation, however, rudely interrupted this and

Nothing to justify the traditional

will accuse of an undue partiality for
the monastic system speaks of
interested and truthless persons who, in
the Reformation time and in later days,
have thought to honor God by blackening
wholesale the monastic character.
per mendacium gratificari" is still far too
often the guiding line of many a polemic
who tries to win his battle by flinging dirt
in the faces of his opponents.

"Deo

A glance at a few of the strict disciplinary rules of the famous Priory of Durham, which we find in the

Rites" already quoted, will form a fitting close to this little study on the monasteries of England at the era of

opinions appears in the results of the visitation of the houses. Mr. Gasquet estimates the number of "religious " of both sexes who were expelled from the houses as roughly eight thousand persons, besides probably more than ten times that number of people who were their dependants, or otherwise obtained their livelihood in the service of the religious houses. In the comperta and letters scarcely two hundred and fifty monks and nuns are named as guilty of incontinence; of these two hundred and fifty, one-third, he tells us, can be identified as having received pensions, which surely even Burnet would consider as disproving the their final dissolution. charges in their regard. This would No woman was ever permitted to leave less than one hundred and come within the body of the church; seventy out of eight thousand, tainted but more than this, in section xviii. we by being accused of grave offences read: against morality by the royal visitors; but being accused by such interested parties as the visitors undoubtedly were, is a very different thing from "being convicted of guilt.' No witnesses ever seem to have been produced, nor in any case do the monks appear to have been allowed to answer to the charges brought against them.

As regards the nuns, Mr. Gasquet tells us that only some twenty-seven in all were charged with vice, and of these twenty-seven, seventeen are known to have been afterwards pensioned; and that further, in the whole visitation, extending over thirteen counties, the visitors only report that some fifty monks and two nuns were desirous to abandon the religious life.

66

away

Dean Kitchin, in his exhaustive introduction to the "Obedientiary Rolls of Winchester," "" considers that while in that great house the reputation for learning which it acquired in earlier days unfortunately faded as time went on, the moral character of the body seems to have been consistently high;" and again, later, he repeats "that even slander had respected that venerable house, and the records carefully searched out reveal nothing that can be turned to its serious discredit; "" and in his final summary, this writer, whom uo one

the abei gaits or within any presynckt of Yf any woman chaunced to come within the house, yf she had bene sene but her length within any place of the saide house, she was taken and sett fast and punished, to gyve example to all others for douing the like.

In section xliii., treating of the dor ter (dormitory), we read how every monk had in that

faire large house called the dorter, a little
chamber of wainscott to himself; every
little chamber was partitioned of, and the
novices had also little chambers, each sep-
arate; and in the dorter [dormitory] every
night was there a privy serche by the Sup
prior, who did caule at every mounches
chamber (by their names) to se good order
kept, that none should be wanting (as also
that there were
no disorders amongst
them); also the said Supprior's chamber
was the first in the dorter for seing of good
order keapt.

The doors of the house were rigorously
locked, and the keys placed in the
charge of a responsible officer. Sec-
tion xliii. contains the following:

All the dures both of the seller, the frater, the dorter, and the cloisters were locked at evin, at vi. of the clocke, and the keys delivered to the Supprior untyl vii. of the clocke the next morninge.

A rigid watch was kept at night by one of the chief obedientiaries.

The Supprior's chamber was over the uess the irreparable losses brought dorter dour, to the intent to heare that none should stir or go forth.

And his office was to goe every nighte as a privy watch before mydnyght and after mydnyght to every mounches chamber and to caule at his chamber dour upon him by his name, to se that none of them should be lacking or stolen furth.

If a monk were found guilty of any grave moral offence, the punishment was exceedingly severe. "Underneath the Master of the Fermyre's [infirmary] chamber was a strong prison called the Lynghouse, which was ordained for all such as were greate offenders." The guilty monk was to be immured in this dungeon "for the space of one hole year in cheynes." No one was to have access to this dungeon save the master of the infirmary, "who did let downe their meate thorough a trap door on a corde, being a great distance from them." It would be interesting to know if offenders often emerged alive from this living death.

about by the spoliation, who feel most
intensely the wrong done to the mem-
ory of a crowd of earnest, God-fearing
men, cannot help acknowledging that
England as a natiou, if it did not ap-
plaud, at least calmly accepted the act
of its imperious master and his servant
Cromwell. Thus the monk passed;
but no change, however far-reaching
in its consequences, like that brought
about by the printing-press,
tional upheaval, like that which closed
the period known as the Middle Ages,

no na

can ever obliterate or even dull the memory of the splendor of the work done by the monastic orders.

From Blackwood's Magazine. A MASTER OF DECEIT.

WHEN Jamie Soutar dropped into the smithy one spring evening with an impracticable padlock, and mentioned casually that he was going to London next day, the assembled neighbors lost power of speech.

Some think that the dissolution of the monasteries inflicted a terrible blow on the social state of England; others "Did ye say London, Jamie ?" are of opinion that the work of the Hillocks was understood to have shown "" orders " was done when the six-great presence of mind in unparalleled teenth century dawned. Neither view circumstances; an' are ye in yir prevents us from lamenting the irrepa- senses ?" rable mischief which the rough and covetous hands of the spoilers worked, when they pulled down the mighty edifice of monasticism. Still less does either oppose our doing a tardy justice to the memory of an army of "toilers for God," on the whole guiltless of the grave charges brought against themcharges, as we have seen, largely manufactured for the purpose of providing an excuse for their spoliation.

"As sune as ye recover yir strength, Smith," said Jamie, taking no notice of fatuous questions, "a'll be obleeged gin ye wud turn the key in this lock. It's a wee dour tae manage; a' hevna used ma bag sin a' gaed tae the saut water saxteen year past."

"Did ye ever hear the like?" and the smith looked round the circle for support, refusing to treat Jamie's demand as an ordinary matter of business.

"What are ye glowerin' at me for as if a' wes a fairlie ?" and Jamie affected anger; "hes a Drumtochty man no as muckle richt tae see the metropolis o' the country as ither fouk, gin he cau pay his fare up an' doon ?

People of all ranks acquiesced in spiritless fashion in the great act of confiscation. Popular indignation showed itself, here and there, in armed risings or angry murmurs. But these manifestations of feeling were very far from being the voice of England as a nation, and they soon died down "A've been wantin' tae see the again; the monk had disappeared, and Tooer o' London, whar mony a lord only a few cared very much. Even hes pairted wi' his heid, an' Westminsthose who still resent with most bitter-ter Abbey, whar the michty dead are

lyin', an' the Hooses o' Parliament, "Posty said something aboot Lily whar they haver a hale nicht through, bein' a wee sober," Jamie remarked, an' the streets, whar the soond o' feet with much composure, as if the matter had just come to his memory; “an' noo a' mind ye expeckit her hame for a holiday laist August. She wadna be wantin' tae traivel sae far north, a'm jalousin'.”

"Traivel!" cried Janet; 66 naebody cares for a lang road gin it brings us hame; an' Lily wes cooutin' she would come up wi' the Drumtochty fouk on the first Friday o' laist August. A' wes cleanin' up the place for a month "Jamie's by himsel in the Glen," tae hae't snod, but she didna come, an' summed up Hillocks, "an' hes a wy a'm fearin' she'ill no be here again; a' o' his ain. Ma thocht is that he juisthed a feelin' frae the beginnin' a' wud took a notion o' seein' London, an' noo never see Lily again. that we've contered [opposed] him, Jamie 'ill go, gin it cost him ten notes."