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tion was restricted to once a year at least, and that about Easter; at the same time all the faithful were commanded to apply in like manner, yearly, with due dispositions, to the sacrament of Penance.

CHAPTER XII.*

OF CLERICAL CELIBACY; AND THE MONASTIC AND CONVENTUAL ORDERS.

As it was the policy of the Court of Rome to detach their Clergy from civil connexions with the country to which they belonged, so was it also to detach them from their social connexions. The more these ties were weakened or diminished, their obedience to a foreign power was likely to be more complete. Hence Monastic institutions were always encouraged by the Popes, and celibacy recommended, and at length imposed on all their Clergy.

The folly, also, and the passions of mankind, have ever disposed many of them not to rest satisfied with the performance of duty, as prescribed by their religion, and regulated by reason and common sense, but to aim at some extraordinary degree of perfection, according to their extravagant ideas, which might give them the reputation of peculiar sanctity with men, and a superior title to the favor of God. Hence the origin of Hermits, Monks, and the whole train of ascetics; of that unsocial solitude, of that pernicious retirement from the world, and those useless austerities imposed on the differ

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ent religious orders of the Roman Church; vows of poverty; prescribed abstinences and distinctions of food; and notions of purity and merit attached to celibacy in preference to marriage.

In the third century, Antony, an Egyptian youth, replete with monastic fanaticism, retired from his family and friends into the neighbouring desert, there to impose on himself all the rigors of an ascetic life. In a country, and amidst a people ripe for the contagion, the rapidity with which it was propagated was astonishing: multitudes, after his example, flocked to the Egyptian deserts, which, during the long life of their leader, became peopled with some thousands of new inhabitants, both male and female hermits.

This rage for monastic life was quickly communicated to Europe, where it also spread with the same rapidity. Multitudes of all descriptions renounced the world, and every Christian country was covered with buildings erected for their reception. Fastings, penances, celibacy, poverty, in short, the privation of every social comfort, joined with much ceremonial and external devotion, passed in those times for the quintessence of real piety. It seemed as if God delighted in the misery of his creatures, and that the most certain, or only way of securing his favor, was by making themselves miserable. Different communities adopted different regulations; from hence branched out all the various Religious Orders of the Roman Church, which acquired influence, and the reputation of sanctity with the people, in proportion to the rigor and severity of their rules. To erect and endow convents, therefore, was thought the highest degree of religious merit; this was the way for the great and rich to make, most certainly, atonement for their sins. They not only founded religious houses in great numbers, but many entered themselves into these communities. Kings descended from their thrones, wives

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separated themselves from their husbands; their piety was extolled beyond all bounds; and many of them became Saints of the Roman Calendar, both male and female.

In the Roman Catholic Church, we are told, since the days of the Apostles, there have ever been Christians, who thus living in the world, but despising its goods, and thirsting

* Vows of poverty make a material part of these Institutions. Poverty is not good in itself; but may be meritorious, like other privations, if it be made to produce benefits which more than counterbalance its evils. Monastic poverty has, however, been always more nominal than real. For when these institutions became the prevailing fashion of the times, when persons in the higher ranks of life, most of them profligate and lawless, as well as others of more worthy characters, thought they could atone for their sins and secure their salvation, by establishing and endowing such foundations, and when the people at large supposed religion to consist in the sort of devotion there practised, riches flowed in upon them on all sides. The members of these communities might indeed be individually poor, but they were collectively rich; and possessed, in perpetuity and unalienably, a vast proportion of the landed property belonging to each country. Even the mendicant orders, where poverty, (it might be supposed,) if any where, was to be found, where it was the distinguishing character of their institution, became possessed of immense wealth.

"And as for their wilful poverty, it was such, that when in possessions, jewels, plate, and riches, they were equal or above merchants, gentlemen, Barons, Earls, and Dukes; yet by this subtile sophistical term, Proprium in communi, that is to say, proper in common, they mocked the world; persuading, that notwithstanding all their riches and possessions, yet they kept their vow, and were in wilful poverty. But for all their riches, they might neither help father nor mother, nor other that were indeed very needy and poor, without the license of their Father, Abbot, Prior, or Warden: and yet they might take of every man; but they might not give ought to any man, no not to them whom the laws of God bound them to help." (Hom. of Good Works.)

after those of the next, gave themselves up to fasting,* prayer, and heavenly meditation; and these, from their exercises, were called (ata) ascetics. In the third century, and afterwards, some flying from persecution, and many fearing the dangers and corruption of a wicked world, after the example of St. John the Baptist, retired into the wilderness, in order that, by being disengaged from the concerns of this life, as much as possible they might give themselves up wholly to spiritual exercises, and prepare themselves for the next.

The following account of a monastic day, is, as a matter of information, both curious and interesting. "The time of the Monks rising was different, according to the different seasons of the year, and the festivals that were solemnized, but the more common time appears to have been about the half hour after one in the morning, so as to be ready in the choir, to begin the night office called Nocturna Vigilia, by two. When these consisted of three nocturns, or were otherwise longer, the

* Fasting and abstinence from particular kinds of food, all of which we think, "God has directed to be received with thanksgiving," form an important title in the rules of different Religious Orders, either of greater or less severity. If fasting at particular times should answer any moral purpose, we would allow its value. "When enjoined by authority (to use the words of a very sensible and temperate author,) it is, at least, but an equivocal sign of inferior repentance. Since the practice has been reduced to a system, and casuists have defined how far it was lawful to proceed without breaking the precept, and what specific meats were allowable, it has become the business of the housekeeper and the cook, to make a proper selection, and to take care that the natural man, in his appetite aş in his constitution, suffer as little injury as possible! The distinctions, indeed, of different kinds of food, prescribed and observed by the Church of Rome, either with respect to Religious Orders, or the people at large, are to the last degree unmeaning and childish." (Sturges, pp. 91, 92.)

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Monks of course rose much earlier. In later ages, the whole of this office, and that of the Matutina Laudes, were performed together, and took up, in the singing of them, about two hours. There was now an interval of an hour, during which the Monks were at liberty in some convents, for this was far from being the case in all, again to repose for a short time on their couches, but great numbers every where spent this time in private prayer. At five began the service called prime, at the conclusion of which the community went in procession to the chapter-house, to attend to the instructions and exhortations, which we have spoken of above. The chapter being finished, they proceeded again to the church to assist at the early, or what was called the Capitular Mass. This being finished, there was the space of an hour, or an hour and a half, which was employed in manual labour, or in study. At eight they again met in the choir to perform the office called tierce, or the third hour, which was followed by the High Mass, and that again by Sext, or, the office of the sixth hour. These services lasted until near ten o'clock, at which time, in later ages, when it was not a fasting day, the community proceeded to the refectory, to dine. They returned, after dinner was over, processionally, to the church, in order, there to finish their solemn grace. There was now a vacant space of an hour, or an hour and a half, during part of which those who were fatigued were at liberty to take their repose, according to the custom in hot countries, which was called from the time of the day when it was taken, the Meridian. Others employed this time in walking and conversing, except on those days when a general silence was enjoined. At one o'clock, None, or, the ninth hour, was sung in the choir, as were vespers, at three. At five they met in the refectory to partake of a slender supper, con

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