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æra of the Roman empire preserved the human "mind from being plunged into the darkness of "the greatest barbarism, and from losing the last "remains of Greek and Roman lore? For this

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blessing, mankind is indebted to the Christian religion. Nothing less than the power of re

ligion could subdue those barbarous prejudices, "which carried the contempt of the sciences, even to writing. It was necessary that there should "be a sacred book, which made the knowledge of "writing indispensable-a particular class, an "order of informed men, bound to study and teach "its contents." It should be added, that in every age and country, the Benedictine monks have rendered the greatest services to religion. Few nations can read the history of the first introduction of Christianity among them, without being sensible of their obligations to the Benedictine monks; their services to literature have been equally great; the shelves of libraries, to use Mr. Gibbon's strong expression, groan under the weight of Benedictine folios.

"The world," says a writer in the Quarterly Review, for the month of December 1811, "has "never been so deeply indebted to any other body "of men, as to this illustrious order; but historians, "when relating the evil of which they were the "occasion, have too frequently forgotten the good "which they produced. Even the commonest readers are familiar with the history of that archmiracle

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monger St. Dunstan; while the most learned of our countrymen scarcely remember the names "of those admirable men, who went forth from

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England, and became the apostles of the north. "Tinian and Juan Fernandez, are not more beau"tiful spots on the ocean, than Malmsbury and Lin"disfarne, and Jarrow, in the ages of our heptarchy: "a community of pious men, devoted to literature "and to the useful arts, as well as to religion, seems, in those ages, like a green oasis amid the "desert; like stars in a moonless night, they shine upon us with a tranquil ray. If ever there was

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a man who could truly be called venerable, it is he, to whom that appellation is constantly prefixed, Bede, whose life was passed in instructing his own. generation, and preparing records for posterity. "In those days, the church offered the only asylum "from the evils to which every country was ex"posed; amidst continual wars the church enjoyed

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peace; it was regarded as a sacred realm, by men, "who, though they hated each other, believed and "feared the same God. Abused, as it was, by the "worldly-minded and ambitious, and disgraced by "the artifices of the designing and the follies of "the fanatic, it afforded a shelter to those, who

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were better than the world in their youth, or

weary of it in their age; the wise, as well as the "timid and the gentle, fled to this Goshen of God,

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III. 2. In consequence of the general devastation and confusion occasioned in Italy, by the Lombards, in Spain, by the Saracens, in France, by the civil wars among the descendants of Charlemagne, and in England, by the irruption of the Danes,—the Benedictine monks fell, from their original fervour, into great disorder. St. Odo restored it, with some modification, in his monastery at Cluni: and several monasteries adopted his reform. They were called the congregation of Cluni; but, by degrees, the congregation of Cluni itself wanted reform; and the general decline of virtue and piety in the Benedictine order was so great, that, in the beginning of the eleventh century, it was difficult to find a single monastery, where even a faint likeness to the state, in which the order had been left by its original founder, was discoverable. But, towards the middle of the eleventh century, several eminent men arose in the Benedictine order, who endeavoured to restore it to its ancient purity; and while each of them added some new statute or custom to the original rule, each of them became the founder of a congregation or secondary order, adhering, in essentials, to the order of St. Benedict, but differing from it, in some particular observances. Such are the Carthusians, the Camadules, the Celestines, the monks of Grandmont, the congregation of St. Maur, and the order of Citeaux, and, a filiation from these, the monks of la Trappe.

"I believe," says the protestant authoress of the

elegant Tour to Alèt and the Grande Chartreuse, "that very few, even among protestants, have "visited la Trappe, without being struck with the

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heavenly countenances of these recluses, with the truly angelic discourse, which flows from their lips as from a fountain of living water. It is impossible to describe the gravity, benignity, peace and love, visible in most of their aspects, or "the humility, yet self-possessed politeness and "attention in their manner. When they are asked,

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why they choose this seclusion, their answer is "uniform to glorify God, to repent of our sins, "and to pray for the unhappy world, which prays "not for itself."

III. 3. St. Benedict admitted both the learned and the unlearned into his order. The first, recited the divine office, in the choir; the second, discharged several duties, which regarded the household œconomy, and the other temporal concerns of the monastery. At this time, the regular recitation of the divine office was only a practice of monastic discipline; at a subsequent period it was made the general duty of all priests, deacons, and subdeacons; and became of course, the duty of all the religious, who had entered into any of those orders. As it was performed in the choir, it became a general practice in the Benedictine order to admit none into it, who were not sufficiently instructed to recite

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they should be priests, or even be in holy orders. All St. Bernard's brothers were professed religious, but none of them was in orders.--Afterwards, the Benedictines judged it advisable to admit into their order, many who, from ignorance, or some other circumstance, were incapable of the duty of the choir, and to employ them in the menial duties or other laborious employments of the house. This introduced lay-brothers into the Benedictine order. At first, they were rather attached to the general body of the order, than a portion of it; but, in time, they were acknowledged, both by the church and the order, to be a portion of the order, and, in the strictest sense of the word, to be professed religious. In its admission of lay-brothers, the Benedictine order has been followed by all other religious orders, both men and women. In 1322, the council of Vienne ordered all monks to enter into the order of priesthood, and to be instructed for it accordingly. The monks of Vallombrosa in Tuscany are the first among whom lay-brothers are found with that name.

Few of our readers will have patience to peruse the Annales Ordinis Sancti Benedicti of Mabillon, in six volumes, in quarto, or his Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti, in nine volumes, in folio: they will find the substance of them in Bulteau's Abrégé de l'histoire de Saint Benoit, two volumes, quarto, 1664.

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