discord; and our author seems to lose some of his usual courtesy when he sums up their history thus:- They have saved nothing, regenerated nothing, elevated nothing; they ended, like all the clergy of the East, in becoming slaves of Islamism, and 'accomplices of schism' (i. 377). Although monastic life was not wholly unknown previously at Rome-for the daughter of Constantine had founded a monastery of women on the spot where S. Agnes appeared to her parentsit was Athanasius, thrice exiled to the West, who made it popular there; and it is one of the most touching facts in the history of the great empire, that the descendants of the Scipios, Marcelli, Gracchi, Camilli, Anicii, the greatest names of Republican Rome, hide all the honours of their race under the hood of the monk, and amid the glorious self-conquests of the religious life. To the Anician family both S. Benedict and S. Gregory were related. It was reserved for Jerome to lead out from Rome illustrious devotees, who thus began the custom of pilgrimages. Out westward the authority of Athanasius had already carried the monastic institute; and in his exile at Treves he made it familiar to all the clergy of Gaul. What S. Ambrose and S. Augustine adopted and propagated, was taken up with like zeal by S. Martin of Tours, the kinsman of S. Patrick, and the founder of the first monastery in Gaul. Having reached this point-the very opening of the whole subject-it will help our readers if we place before them a concise account of the orders themselves. We had drawn out a longer and less useful enumeration. Nothing can be conciser than the following: 'The religious orders may generally be classed in four great categories:-1st, the Monks, properly so called, which comprehend the orders of S. Basil and S. Benedict, with all their branches, Cluny, the Camaldules, the Chartreux, the Cistercians, the Celestines, Fontevrault, Grandmont,-all anterior to the thirteenth century; 2d, the Regular Canons, who follow the rule of S. Augustine, and who have neither gained great distinction, nor rendered eminent services, but to whom are attached two illustrious orders, that of Prémontre,2 and that of La Mercè, for the redemption of captives; 3d, the Brothers, or religious mendicants (Fratè), which comprehend the Dominicans, the Franciscans (with all their sub-divisions, Conventuals, Observantins, Récollets, Capucins), the Carmelites, Augustines, the Servites, the Minimes, and, generally, all the orders created from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries; 1 The monks of S. Basil, frequently migrating into the West to escape the horrors of Mahommedan rule, contributed to preserve that element of Greek in the old liturgies, which is so remarkable a feature in them. See a valuable paper on this subject in the second series of Essays in 'The Church and the World,' by the Bishop of Brechin. 2 The rule of S. Augustine will come under review when we consider its resuscitation in the time of Charlemagne. It was adopted by S. Dominic. It was written in 423, and drawn up in twenty-four articles, and was originally designed for the nuns of Hippo. 4th and lastly, the Regular Clerks, a form affected exclusively by the orders created since the sixteenth century. Those of the Jesuits, the Theatins, the Barnabites, &c. The Lazarists, the Oratorians, the Eudistes, are only like the Sulpicians, secular priests, united in a congregation.'-Vol. i. p. 14. The main founder of all this organised piety was a young patrician, who, flying from the temptations of Roman life, after spending the earlier years of his religious life at Subiaco, moved to another spot, which had been already commemorated by that pagan Benedictine, Varro. There, amid the ruins of a temple of Apollo, he founded two oratories, dedicated to the first of solitaries, S. John the Baptist; the other to the great monkbishop, S. Martino: and here he spent the closing fourteen years of his life. And most remarkable has been the history of a place surrounded with so much abiding interest of its own. It was wasted by the Lombards, the Saracens, and the French, besides enduring many intervening calamities. Joseph Bonaparte turned it into a library; but under the Bourbons it again began to revive. At the close of the sixteenth century its income was rated at half a million of ducats. The Abbot was premier Baron of Naples, held a special diocese of thirty-seven parishes, with four bishoprics, not to speak of other dependencies. It was held under the Commende by Leo X. when a youth; and to the prevalence of this system its overthrow may be ascribed. Here S. Benedict laboured all his remaining years, ministering among the surrounding populations, overthrowing paganism, and using all his pious efforts to reconcile to one another the Italians and the new masters of Italy. His death took place in 543, and he was prepared for that change by the sacrifice which God was pleased to call on him to make. Like other saints attached to some dear relative-as Augustine to Monica, as S. Francis to S. Clara, as Francis de Sales to S. Jeanne de Chantal, Benedict had grown up united in the tenderest union of fraternal love with his sister Scholastica, who earlier than her brother had consecrated herself to God, and who thus became the patroness of all women who ever after embraced the rule of her brother. Though their monasteries were close together, the brother and sister met but on one day in the year, which they spent together on the hillside, at a spot ever since held holy. Then, at their last meeting, occurred that struggle of fraternal love with the austerity of the rules, which is the only known episode in the life of Scholastica, and which has insured an imperishable remembrance to her name. They had passed the entire day in pious conversation, mingled with praises of God. Towards the evening they ate together. While they were still at table, and the night approached, Scholastica said to her brother, "I pray thee, do not leave me to-night, but let us speak of the joys of heaven till the morning." "What sayest thou, my sister? answered Benedict; 66 on no account can 66 66 I remain out of the monastery." Upon the refusal of her brother, Scholastica bent her head between her clasped hands on the table, and prayed to God shedding floods of tears. The weather was very serene; there was not a cloud in the air. But scarcely had she raised her head, when thunder was beard, and a violent storm began; the rain, lightning, and thunder were such that neither Benedict, nor any of the brethren who accompanied him could take a step beyond the roof that sheltered them. Then he said to Scholastica, May God pardon thee, my sister, but what hast thou done?" "Ah, yes," she answered him, "I prayed thee, and thou wouldst not listen to me; then I prayed God, and He heard me. Go now, if thou canst, and send me away, to return to thy monastery." He resigned himself, against his will, to remain, and they passed the rest of the night in spiritual conversation. S. Gregory, who has preserved this tale to us, adds that it is not to be wondered at God granted the desire of the sister rather than that of the brother, because of the two it was the sister who loved most, and that those who love most have the greatest power with God. In the morning they parted to see each other no more in this life. Three days after Benedict had a vision, in which he saw his sister entering heaven under the form of a dove.'-Vol. ii. p. 37. He survived her only forty days. By her opened grave at the foot of the altar, he died, standing and praying. And thus they, so beautiful in their lives, remained in death undivided. The celebrated rule of S. Benedict has been made familiar to us all of late, and need not here be quoted. The best edition of it is that by Dom Charles Brandes, Benedictine of Einsiedeln, as it is given in his life of the saint (3 vols., Einsiedeln and New York, 1857). As is well known, the two leading principles of the Rule are labour and obedience. The absolute authority of the Abbot was limited by the constitutional character of the body, and the method of his election. The Rule seemed to embrace two things an evangelical foundation and a feudal form.' Unlike former rules, at the close of the year of the novitiate, the vow of stability was taken. Hitherto even the professed's secular dress was preserved for him, in case he should wish to leave the monastery. There is no express mention of poverty and chastity in the rule, because these are in a measure included in the third vow of obedience; and Benedict undertook to regulate, not to create, the institution. The seventy-three chapters into which the rule is divided are devoted, some to the duties of abbot and monks, thirteen to worship and divine services, twenty-nine to discipline, ten to internal administration of the monastery, twelve to various heads, such as reception of guests, &c. The admiration of mankind has regarded Benedict as a second Moses or Joshua. But there can be no doubt that the master-monk himself had no foresight as to the result of his rule. His thoughts, for aught we know or can discover, never travelled beyond the one great aim and issue of his prayersthe spiritual culture and perfection of his own community.' 1 The Church, properly speaking, recognises only four rules: the rule of NO. CXXXIX.-N.S. C None the less boundless were the results. In less than a century after the death of Benedict, all that the Church had lost to the barbarians was reconquered; and not only were Italy, Gaul, and Spain retaken, but the Gospel was preached and the Church established in Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia. What other machinery could have accomplished results so magnificent? and what are we that can read this narrative of wonder with heart unmoved and with pulse unquickened? Between the death of S. Benedict in 543 and the adoption of the religious life by S. Gregory in 575, appears the illustrious senator and monk, Cassiodorus, the minister and friend of five kings.' He devoted his immense wealth to the foundation of a monastery at Viviers, in Calabria, which at one time seemed likely to rival Monte Cassino. In some measure he even anticipated the distinguishing features of the Benedictine rule; for instance, he collected an immense library at Viviers, and he imposed upon his monks a complete course of most severe study. He himself composed at his monastery his treatise upon the Teaching of Sacred Literature, a kind of elementary encyclopædia, which was the code of monastic education, and served long as a programme to the intellectual education of the new nations. At eighty-three he had the courage to commence a treatise upon orthography, in order to assist in the correction of ancient copies of the holy books. So, too, Cassiodorus was earnest to inculcate the dignity and necessity of labour. In the meantime the cherished disciple of S. Benedict had carried to Sicily the rule of his master, and had opened at Messina the first Benedictine monastery founded out of Italy, and soon after received a martyr's death from the hands of some Moorish fanatics, two brethren and his sister Flavia suffering with him. Throughout Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, the rule spread rapidly, and many of the Benedictines were found constant unto death in their labour of Christian love. Already the Lombards were in Italy. At the time of their first invasion, a young patrician of the name of Gregory held the office of prætor at Rome. He had been born three years before the death of Benedict. In the discharge of his public duties he gained golden opinions from all, but the refugees from the desolated Monte Cassino weaned him slowly, but surely, from a secular life. He endowed six new monasteries in Sicily, and established one in his own palace on the Cælian, dedicated to S. Andrew. This he entered, and nine S. Basil, S. Augustine, S. Benedict, and S. Francis. The designation of monk is not usually given to those who follow the rule of S. Augustine, or to the mendicants. years after he became its abbot. The Pope drew him from the cloister to become one of the cardinal deacons, and sent him as his nuncio to Constantinople. He was fifty when, after striving in vain to elude the distinction, he became Pope. It was during the interval between his election and confirmation that he appointed the three days' procession through Rome of all the religious of both sexes, in the hope of turning back the plague. As the ranks passed before him, Gregory 'saw an angel appear'ing upon the summit of the Hadrian mole, putting back his 'sword into its sheath, the image of which standing upon the 'colossal mausoleum has given its name to the Castle of 'S. Angelo, and perpetuated to our own day the recollection of 'S. Gregory's vision' (ii. 92). Count Montalembert's history of the life of S. Gregory is very good reading. He is impartial and generous in his estimate of this truly great man. The moment and the position were fraught with the gravest perils, but Gregory's ceaseless efforts to convert the Lombards, and by saving them to save Rome, were crowned with success. Through the mediation of the Christian Queen Theodelinda, to whom he had dedicated his dialogues, he gradually gained over the king and the nation to the Catholic faith, but he had a lifelong struggle against the tyrannous exactions of the Byzantine Court, as well as against the ecclesiastical pretensions of the Patriarch of Constantinople. What Stephen Langton was in England, that was Gregory in Rome; and the illustrious pontiff has these additional claims to be held in loving remembrance by her spiritual children in this land, in that it is he himself who has, in his argument with John, the wellknown Patriarch of Constantinople, justified for ever the protest which the Church in England makes, joined herein by all the Churches of the East, against the modern pretensions to supremacy so illogically and inconsistently advanced by the successors of Gregory himself. We cannot, however, leave unquoted an incident which exhibits in a painful light the weakness of Gregory's character. The Emperor Maurice reigned twenty years, and Gregory praises him for his devotion to the Church and his respect for her canons. His only fault seems to have been avarice, which betrayed him into the crime which cost him his throne and life. Rather than pay the ransom demanded by the Avars, he abandoned twelve thousand captives of his army to an indiscriminate massacre. The consequent military revolt placed Phocas on the throne, who forthwith proceeded to murder Maurice, having previously put to death before his eyes his six sons, even the youngest, who was still at the breast, whom his nurse vainly tried to save by substituting her own child. The Emperor died like a Christian penitent, repeating the words, 'Thou art just, |