comers, stood the monastery, where lay the hope of humanity, as in a safe asylum. Behind its walls was the church, and clustered around it the dwelling places of those who had left the world, and devoted their lives to the service of that church, and the salvation of their souls. Far and near in its vicinity the land bore witness to assiduous culture and diligent care, bearing on its fertile bosom the harvest hope of those who had labored, which the heavens watered, the sun siniled upon, and the winds played over, until the heart of man rejoiced, and all nature was big with the promise of increase. This was the refuge to which religion and art had fled. In the quiet seclusion of its cloisters science labored at its problems and perpetuated its results, uncheered by applause and stimulated only by the pure love of the pursuit. Art toiled in the church, and whole generations of busy fingers worked patiently at the decoration of the temple of the Most High. The pale, thoughtful monk, upon whose brow genius had set her mark, wandered into the calm retirement of the library, threw back his cowl, buried himself in the study of philosophy, history, or divinity, and transferred his thoughts to vellum, which was to molder and waste in darkness and obscurity, like himself in his lonely monk's grave, and be read only when the spot where he labored should be a heap of ruins, and his very name a controversy among scholars.

We should never lose sight of this truth, that in this building, when the world was given up to violence and darkness, was garnered up the hope of humanity; and these men who dwelt there in contemplation and obscurity were its faithful guardians ;—and this was more particularly the case with that great order whose foundation we have been examining. The Benedictines were the depositaries of learning and the arts; they gathered books together, and reproduced them in the silence of their cells, and they preserved in this way not only the volumes of sacred writ, but many of the works of classic lore. They started Gothic architecture— that matchless union of nature with art—they alone had the secrets of chemistry and medical science; they invented many colors; they were the first architects, artists, glass-stainers, carvers, and mosaic workers in medieval times. They were the original illuminators of manuscripts, and the first transcribers of books; in fine, they were the writers, thinkers, and workers of a dark age, who wrote for no applause, thought with no encouragement, and worked for no reward. Their power, too, waxed mighty; kings trembled before their denunciations of tyranny, and in the hour of danger fled to their altars for safety; and it was an English king who made

a pilgrimage to their shrines, and, prostrate at the feet of five Benedictine monks, bared his back, and submitted himself to be scourged as a penance for his crimes.

Nearly fourteen hundred years have rolled by since the great man who founded this noble order died; and he who in after years compiled the "Saxon Chronicle," has recorded it in a simple sentence, which, amongst the many records of that document, we may at least believe, and which will conclude the chapter-This year St. Benedict the Abbot, father of all monks, went to heaven.'

OFFICERS OF A MONASTIC ESTABLISHMENT.

The head and ruler of the Benedictine Monastery was the abbot-and his election and installation were events of great moment, not only in the establishment, but to all the country round about. In its palmy days, he ranked as peer, and the monarch himself could not enter the gates without the abbot's permission. The next man in office to the abbot was the prior, who, in the absence of his superior, was invested with full powers; but on other occasions his jurisdiction was limited-in some monasteries he was assisted by subpriors, in proportion to the size of the institution and number of its inmates. After the prior in rank came the precentor or chanter, an office only given to a monk who had been brought up in the monastery from a child. He had the supervision of the choral service, the writing out the tables of divine service for the monks, the correction of mistakes in chanting, which he led off from his place in the center of the choir; he distributed the robes at festivals, and arranged processions. The cellarer was intrusted with the food, drink, etc., of the monastery, also with the mazers or drinking cups of the monks, and all other vessels used in the cellar, kitchen, and refectory; he had to attend at the refectory table, and collect the spoons after dinner. The treasurer had charge of the documents, deeds and moneys belonging to the monastery; he received the rents, paid all the wages and expenses, and kept the accounts. The sacristan's duties were connected with the church; he had to attend to the altar, to carry a lantern before the priest, as he went from the altar to the lecturn, to cause the bell to be rung; he took charge of all the sacred vessels in use, prepared the host, the wine, and the altar bread. The almoner's duty was to provide the monks with mats or hassocks for their feet in the church, also matting in the chapter-house, cloisters, and dormitory stairs; he was to attend to the poor, and distribute alms amongst them, and in the winter, warm clothes and shoes. After the monks had retired from the refectory, it was his duty to go round and collect any drink left in the mazers to be given away to the poor. The kitchener was filled by a different monk every week, in turn, and he had to arrange what food was to be cooked, go round to the infirmary, visit the sick and provide for them, and superintend the labors of his assistants. The infirmarer had care of the sick; it was his office to administer to their wants, to give them their meals, to sprinkle holy water on their beds every night after the service of complin. A person was generally appointed to this duty who, in case of emergency, was competent to receive the confession of a sick man. The porter was generally a grave monk of mature age; he had an assistant to keep the gate when he delivered messages, or was compelled to leave his post. The chamberlain's business was to look after the beds, bedding, and shaving room, to attend to the dormitory windows, and to have the chambers swept, and the straw of the beds changed once every year, and under his supervision was the tailory, where clothes, etc, was made and repaired. There were other offices connected with the monastery, but these were the principal, and next to these came the monks who formed the convent with the lay brethren and novices.

We give brief notices of a few of the earlier Benedictine Abbeys.

MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS AND CIVILIZATION.

To appreciate the services rendered by the institutions which grew up under the rule of St. Benedict, we must look closely into the state of society which existed at the advent of Christianity, and which succeeded the downfall of the Roman Empire, and the processes by which the new civilization was planted in regions before utterly barbarous. Dr. Newman has described, in a short chapter, the Downfall and Refuge of Ancient Civilization, portions of which we introduce here.

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There never was, perhaps, in the history of this tumultuous world, prosperity so great, so far-spreading, so lasting, as that which began throughout the vast Empire of Rome, at the time when the Prince of Peace was born into it. Preternatural as was the tyranny of certain of the Caesars, it did not reach the mass of the population; and the reigns of the five good emperors, who succeeded them, are proverbs of wise and gentle government. The sole great exception to this universal happiness was the cruel persecution of the Christians; the sufferings of a whole world fell and were concentrated on them, and the children of heaven were tormented, that the sons of men might enjoy their revel. Their Lord, while His shadow brought peace upon earth, foretold that in the event He came to send 'not peace but a sword;' and that sword was first let loose upon His own people. Judgment commenced with the House of God;' and though, as time went on, it left Jerusalem behind, and began to career round the world and sweep the nations as it traveled on, nevertheless, as if by some paradox of Providence, it seemed at first, that truth and wretchedness had met together.' and sin and prosperity had 'kissed one another.' The more the heathens enjoyed themselves, the more they scorned, hated, and persecuted their true light and true peace. They persecuted Him, for the very reason that they had little else to do; happy and haughty, they saw in Him the sole drawback, the sole exception, the sole hindrance, to a universal, a continual sunshine; they called Him the enemy of the human race;' and they felt themselves bound, by their loyalty to the glorious and immortal memory of their forefathers, by their traditions of state, and their duties towards their children, to trample upon and, if they could, to stifle that teaching, which was destined to be the life and mold of a new world.

But our immediate subject here is, not Christianity, but the world that passed away; and before it passed, it had, I say, a tranquillity great in proportion to its former commotions. Ages of trouble terminated in two centuries of peace. The present crust of the earth is said to be the result of a long war of elements, and to have been made so beautiful, so various, so rich, and so useful, by the disciple of revolutions, by earthquake and lightning, by mountains of water and seas of fire; and so in like manner, it required the events of two thousand years, the multiform fortunes of tribes and populations, the rise and fall of kings, the mutual collision of states, the spread of colonies, the vicissitudes and the succession of conquests, and the gradual adjustment and settlement of innumerous discordant ideas and interests, to carry on the human race to unity, and to shape and consolidate the great Roman Power.

And when once those unwieldy materials were welded together into one mass, what human force could split them up again? what hammer of the earth' could shiver at a stroke a solidity which had taken ages to form? Who can estimate the strength of a political establishment, which has been the slow birth of time? and what establishment ever equaled pagan Rome? Hence has come the proverb, Rome was not built in a day; it was the portentous solidity of its power that forced the gazer back upon an exclamation, which was the relief of his astonishment, as being his solution of the prodigy. And, when at length it was built, Rome, so long in building, was Eternal Rome;' it had been done once for all; its being was inconceivable beforehand, and its not being was inconceivable afterwards. It had been a miracle that it was

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brought to be; it would take a second miracle that it should cease to be. To remove it from its place was to cast a mountain into the sea. Look at the Palatine Hill, penetrated, traversed, cased with brickwork, till it appears a work of man, not of nature; run your eye along the cliffs from Ostia to Terracina, covered with the debris of masonry; gaze around the bay of Baiæ, whose rocks have been made to serve as the foundations and the walls of palaces; and in those mere remains, lasting to this day, you will have a type of the moral and political strength of the establishments of Rome. Think of the aqueducts making for the imperial city, for miles across the plain; think of the straight roads stretching off again from that one centre to the ends of the earth consider the vast territory round about it strewn to this day with countless ruins; follow in your imagination its suburbs, extending along its roads, for as much, at least in some directions, as forty miles; and number up its continuous mass of population, amounting, as grave authors say, to almost six millions; and answer the question, how was Rome ever to be got rid of? why was it not to progress? why was it not to progress for ever? where was that ancient civilization to end? Such were the questionings and anticipations of thoughtful minds, not specially proud or fond of Rome. The world,' says Tertullian, has more of cultivation every day, and is better furnished than in times of old. All places are opened up now; all are familiarly known; all are scenes of business. Smiling farms have obliterated the notorious wilderness; tillage has tamed the forest land; flocks have put to flight the beasts of prey. Sandy tracts are sown; rocks are put into shape; marshes are drained. There are more cities now, than there were cottages at one time. Islands are no longer wild; the crag is no longer frightful; everywhere there is a home, a population, a state, and a livelihood.' Such was the prosperity, such the promise of progress and permanence, in which the Assyrian, the Persian, the Greek, the Macedonian conquests had terminated

Education had gone through a similar course of difficulties, and had a place in the prosperous result. First," carried forth upon the wings of genius, and disseminated by the energy of individual minds, or by the colonizing missions of single cities, knowledge was irregularly extended to and fro over the spacious regions, of which the Mediterranean is the common basin. Introduced, in course of time, to a more intimate alliance with political power, it received the means, at the date of Alexander and his successors, both of its cultivation and its propagation. It was formally recognized and endowed under the Ptolemies, and at length became a direct object of the solicitude of the government under the Cæsars. It was honored and dispensed in every considerable city of the Empire; it tempered the political administration of the conquering people; it civilized the manners of a hundred barbarian conquests; it gradually reconciled uncongenial, and associated distant countries, with each other; while it had ever ministered to the fine arts, it now proceeded to subserve the useful. It took in hand the reformation of the world's religion; it began to harmonize the legends of discordant worships; it purified the mythology by making it symbolical; it interpreted it, and gave it a moral, and explained away its idolatry. It began to develope a system of ethics, it framed a code of laws; what might not be expected of it, as time went on, were it not for that illiberal, unintelligible; fanatical, abominable sect of Galileans? If they were allowed to make play, and get power, what might not happen? There again Christians were in the way, as hateful to the philosopher, as to the statesman. Yet in truth it was not in this quarter that the peril of civilization lay; it lay in a very different direction, over against the Empire to the North and North-east, in a black cloud of inexhaustible barbarian populations; and when the storm mounted overhead and broke upon the earth, it was those scorned and detested Galileans, and none but they, the men-haters and God-despisers, who, returning good for evil, housed and lodged the scattered remnants of that old world's wisdom, which had so persecuted them, went forth valiantly to meet the savage destroyer, tamed him without arms, and became the founders of a new and higher civilization. Not a man in Europe now, who talks bravely against the Church, but owes it to the Church, that he can talk at all.

But what was to be the process, what the method, what the instruments, what the place, for sheltering the treasures of ancient intellect during the convulsion, of bridging over the abyss, and of linking the old world to the new? In spite of the consolidation of its power, Rome was to go, as all things human go, and vanish for ever. In the words of inspiration, Great Babylon came in remembrance before God, and every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.' All the fury of the elements was directed against it; and, as a continual dropping wears away the stone, so blow after blow, and revolution after revolution, sufficed at last to heave up, and hurl down, and smash into fragments, the noblest earthly power that ever was. First came the Goth, then the Hun, and then the Lombard. The Goth took possession, but he was of noble nature, and soon lost his barbarism. The Hun came came next; he was irreclaimable, but did not stay. The Lombard kept both his savageness and his ground; he appropriated to himself the territory, not the civilization of Italy, fierce as the Hun, and powerful as the Goth, the most tremendous scourge of Heaven. In his dark presence the poor remains of Greek and Roman splendor died away, and the world went more rapidly to ruin, material and moral, than it was advancing from triumph to triumph in the Tertullian. Alas! the change between Rome in the hey-day of her pride, and in the agony of her judgment! Tertullian writes while she is exalted; Pope Gregory when she is in humiliation. He was delivering homilies upon the Prophet Ezekiel, when the news came to Rome of the advance of the Lombards upon the city, and in the course of them he several times burst out into lamentations at the news of miseries, which eventually obliged him to cut short his exposition.

'Sights and sounds of war,' he says, 'meet us on every side. The cities are destroyed; the military stations broken up; the land devastated; the earth depopulated No one remains in the country; scarcely any inhabitants in the towns; yet even the poor remains of human kind are still smitten daily and without intermission. Before our eyes some are carried away captive, some mutilated, some murdered. She herself, who once was mistress of the world, we behold how Rome fares; worn down by manifold and incalculable distresses, the bereavement of citizens, the attack of foes, the reiteration of overthrows, where is her senate? where are her people? We, the few survivors, are still the daily prey of the sword and of other innumerable tribulations. Where are they who in a former day reveled in her glory? where is their pomp, their pride, their frequent and immoderate joy ?-youngsters, young men of the world, congregated here from every quarter, where they aimed at a secular advancement. Now no one hastens up to her for preferment; and so it is with other cities also; some places are laid waste by pestilence, others are depopulated by the sword, others are tormented by famine; and others are swallowed up by earthquakes.'

These words, far from being a rhetorical lament, are but a meagre statement of some of the circumstances of a desolation, in which the elements themselves, as St. Gregory intimates, as well as the barbarians, took a principal part. In the dreadful age of that great Pope, a plague spread from the lowlands of Egypt to the Indies on the one hand, along Africa across to Spain on the other, till, reversing its course, it reached the eastern extremity of Europe, For fifty-two years did it retain possession of the infected atmosphere, and, in Constantinople, during three months, five thousand, and at length ten thousand persons, are said to have died, daily. Many cities of the East were left without inhabitants; and in several districts of Italy there were no laborers to gather either harvest or vintage. A succession of earthquakes accompanied for years this heavy calamity. Constantinople was shaken for above forty days. Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have perished in the earthquake of Antioch, crowded, as the city was, with strangers for the festival of the Ascension. Berytus, the eastern school of Roman jurisprudence, called, from its literary and scientific importance, the eye of Phoenicia, shared a similar fate. These, however, were but local visitations. Cities are indeed the homes of civilization, but the wide earth, with her hill and dale, open plain and winding valley, is its refuge.