centuries in which Latin Christianity ruled the western world. The two sexes were not merely to be strangers, but natural, irreconcileable enemies. This strong repulsion was carried not only into their judgments upon themselves, but into their judgments of those who were yet in the world without. All monks inevitably embraced, with the most extreme severity, the dominant notion of the absolute sinfulness of all sexual intercourse; at least, its utter incompatibility with religious service. A noble lady is possessed with a legion of devils, for compliance with her husband, before a procession in honour of the bones of St. Sebastian. The less questionable natural affections were proscribed with equal severity. Attachment to the order was to be the one absorbing affection. A boy monk, who loved his parents too fondly, and stole forth to visit them, was not merely suddenly struck with death, but the holy earth refused to retain his body, and cast it forth with indignation. It was only by the influence of Benedict, who commanded the Holy Eucharist to be placed upon the body, that it was permitted to repose in the grave.

But the later days of Benedict, at Monte Casino, though adorned with perpetual miracle, did not seclude him or his peaceful votaries from the disastrous times which overwhelmed Italy during the fall of the Gothic monarchy and Ravages in the re-conquest by the Eastern Emperor. War Italy. respected not these holy sanctuaries; and in prophetic vision Benedict saw his establishment laid waste, and all its lofty buildings in ruins before the ravages of the spoiler. He was consoled, however, it is added, by visions of the extension of his rule throughout Europe, and the rise of flourishing Benedictine monasteries in every part of the West. Nor were the virtues of Benedict without influence in assuaging the horrors of the war. Totila himself, the last and not least noble Gothic sovereign, came to

Gregor. Dial. i. 10. There is another strange story of the power of Benedict: he had excommunicated certain nuns for the unbridled use of their tongues. They were buried, however, in the church. But when the sacrament was next administered, at the voice of the deacon, commanding all

who did not communicate to depart, the bodies rose from their graves and walked out of the church. This was seen by their nurse, who communicated the fact to Benedict. The pitying saint commanded an oblation to be made for them, and ever after they rested quietly in their graves.--Greg. Ďial. ii. 23.

Totila.

consult the prophetic saint of Monte Casino as an oracle. He attempted to practise a deception upon him, by dressing one of his chieftains in the royal attire. Benedict at once detected the fraud, and Riggo, the chieftain, returned to his master, deeply impressed with awe at the supernatural knowledge of the saint. Totila himself, it is said, fell prostrate at the feet of Benedict, who raised him up, solemnly rebuked his cruelties, foretold his conquest of Rome, his passage of the sea, his reign of nine years, his death during the tenth. The greater humanity with which Totila from this time conducted the war, his severity against his soldiers for the violation of female chastity, the virtues, in short, of this gallant warrior, are attributed to this interview with Benedict. Considering the uncertainty of the date assigned to this event, it is impossible to estimate how far the fierce warrior was already under the control of those Christian feelings which led him to seek the solitude of the saint, or was really awe-struck into more thoughtful religiousness by these prophetic admonitions."

Benedict did not live to witness the ruin of Monte

Casino; his sister, St. Scolastica, preceded him S.Scolastica. in her death but a few days. There is something

striking in the attachment of the brother and sister, the human affection struggling with the hard spirit of monasticism. St. Scolastica was a female Benedict. Equally devout, equally powerful in attracting and ruling the minds of recluses of her own sex, the remote foundress of convents, almost as numerous as those of her brother's rule. With the most perfect harmony of disposition, one in holiness, one in devotion, they were of different sexes, and met but once a year. The feminine weakness of the dying Scolastica for once extorted an unwilling breach of his rule from her severer brother. He had come to visit her, probably for the last time; she entreated him to rest for the night in her convent; but Benedict had never, so There are several other anecdotes of Totila in the Dialogues of Gregory. He went to consult the Bishop of Canosa, as a prophet, and tried to deceive him. See likewise the odd story of Cassius, Bishop of Narni, whom

Totila, from his red nose, unjustly suspected of drunkenness. In several other instances Totila was compelled to reverence the sanctity of bishops, whom he had begun to persecute.--c. x. and xi. Greg. Dial. 2, xxxiii.

spake his own laws, passed a night out of his own monastery. But Heaven was more indulgent than the monk. Scolastica reclined her head in profound prayer. Suddenly the serene sky was overcast, lightnings and thunders flashed and roared around, the rain fell in torrents. "The Lord have mercy upon you, my sister!" said Benedict; "what have you done?" "You," she replied, "have rejected my prayers; but the Lord hath not. Go now, if you can." They passed the night in devout spiritual exercises. Three days after Benedict saw the soul of his sister soaring to heaven in the shape of a dove. Only a short time elapsed, and Benedict was seized with a mortal sickness. Six days before his death he ordered his grave to be opened, and at the end breathed his last in prayer. His death was not without its prophetic announcements. It was revealed to a monk in his cell at Monte Casino, and to his chosen disciple, St. Maurus, who had already left Italy to establish the rule of his master in the monasteries of Gaul. In a convent near Auxerre, Maurus was rapt in spirit, and beheld a way strewn with garments and lighted with lamps, which led direct from the cell of Benedict to heaven. "May God enable us to follow our master along this heavenward way." Benedict was buried in the oratory of John the Baptist, which stood upon the site of the sanctuary of Apollo.

The vision of St. Benedict of the universal diffusion of his order was accomplished with a rapidity wonderful even in those times. In Italy, from Calabria to the Alps, Benedictine monasteries began to rise on the brows of beetling mountains, sometimes in quiet valleys. Their buildings gradually grew in spaciousness and splendour;" nor did they absolutely abandon the cities, as dangerous to themselves or beyond the sphere of their exemplary rigour. Few, if any, of the great towns are without their Benedictine convent. Every monastery sent forth its colonies. The monks seem to multiply with greater fecundity than the population of the most flourishing cities, and were

"It did not often happen that a monastery, ashamed of its magnificence, like one built by the desire, but not according to the modest notions, of S.

Waltruda, fell of its own accord, and gave place to a humbler edifice.—-Mabillon, Ann. i. p. 405.

obliged to throw off their redundant brethren to some new settlement. They swarmed, according to their language, like bees. Wherever was the abode of men was the abode of these recluses, who had put off the ordinary habits, attire, occupations of men; wherever they settled in the troubled wilderness men gathered around them, as if to partake of their sanctity and security. Maurus, the faithful friend and associate of Benedict, had crossed the Alps even before his death. Bishop Innocent, of Le Mans, who had invited him to Gaul, had died before his arrival; but he was hospitably received in Orleans. The first Benedictine monastery in France rose at Glanfeuille, on the Loire, not far from Angers; it was but the first of many rich and noble foundations-foundations which, as they grew in wealth and splendour, and, in consequence, in luxury and ease, were either themselves brought back by some stern reformer, who wrought them up to their old austere discipline, or rivalled and supplanted by new monasteries, which equalled or surpassed the rigour of Benedict himself. The name of St. Maur is dear to letters. Should his disciples have in some degree departed from the iron rule of their founder, the world, even the enlightened Christian world, will pardon them if their profound and useful studies have withdrawn them from mechanical and automatic acts of devotion. In Spain the monasteries mostly fell in the general wreck of Christianity on the Mahommedan conquest; few scanty and doubtful records survived, to be gleaned by the industry of their successors, as Christianity slowly won back the land."

new impulse to monasticism, as founding new monasteries, but as quickening the older ones into new life and energy.

y Noirmoutier, founded by S. Meudon, accepted the rule of S. Benedict, and be came the head of the Benedictine order in France; other great monasteries were S. Benignus at Dijon; St. Denys; the Chaise Dieu, near Puy de Velay; Fleury, near the Loire. In England, Canterbury, Westminster, Glastonbury, St. Albans. In the north, Wearmouth, Yarrow, Lindisfarn.-Helyot.

Flores, España Sagrada, passim. This valuable work gives the religious history of Spain, according to its pro2 F

With St. Augustine the rule of St. Benedict passed to England; but there it might seem as if the realm, instead of banishing them, or permitting their self-banishment, to the wild heath or the mountain crest, had chosen for them, or allowed them to choose, the fairest spots in the land for their settlements. In every rich valley, by the side of every clear and deep stream, arose a Benedictine Abbey. The labours of the monks in planting, in cultivation, in laying out the sunny garden, or hanging the hill with trees, may have added much to the picturesque grace of these scenes; but, in general, if a district in England be surveyed, the most convenient, most fertile, most peaceful spot, will be found to have been the site of a Benedictine abbey.

Their numbers at any one time it may be difficult to estimate. Abbeys rose and fell, like other human institutions; the more favoured, however, handed down the sacred tradition of their foundation, of their endowments, of their saints, of their miracles, of their good deeds to civilisation, till the final wreck of monastic institutions during the last century; and even from that wreck a few have survived, or lifted up again their venerable heads.

vinces, so that the annals of each church or abbey must be followed out.

a

Mabillon, Ann. Ordin. Benedict. passim. The number of great monasteries founded in Italy, Rhenane Germany, and France, between 520 and 700, is astonishing. There are some after

the conversion of Recared, Toledo, Merida, &c., in Spain.

b Sarpi (p. 78, delle Mater Benefic.) quotes the Abbot Trithemius as asserting that in his day there were 15,000 Benedictine convents.