66 on these grounds will we meet them, and on these, their avowed better points, will we join issue. "We ought all to own, and be grateful for," says the authority to which we previously referred," the many benefits that we enjoy through the religion and religionists of the middle ages. To them we owe the most consummate of all architectural works, even in their present state-our cathedrals, and to them we may owe the knowledge how to restore these buildings to their pristine splendour, when not architecture only, but sculpture and painting also, lavished their wondrous skill upon the houses of God." "To them we owe the cultivation of the love of music among the people, by familiarizing them with it through all the services, processions, and festivals of the church; and to them we may owe a better state of feeling than that which has recently allowed the musical performances of our cathedral choirs to be mutilated, on the paltriest grounds, when two such choirs had become rich be the following affirmative tenets, premising that the author somewhat confuses the monastic order of religionists with religionists in general; and the reader must therefore be prepared to detract somewhat from the favourable colouring which he finds given to some of the details. To make this distinction the more clear, we will point out and define the four distinct orders or sects of religionists of the monastic period, from which it will be clear what share of honour redounds to the particular sect of monks. "The highest of these stages," says our authority, was occupied by the monks, who were for all practical purposes as lost to their fellow-men, as if they were really what they desired to be-half absorbed into the heaven which they had so nearly approached; then, duly succeeding each other downwards, the regular canons, the secular canons, and lastly, the parochial clergywhose especial duty it was, in complete opposition to that of the monks, to mingle amongst and instruct their fellow-men." The monks were thus ascetics; they led a calm and retired life; their sphere of opera-yond measure in the sublimest ecclesiastical tion was in the cold cloisters; their objects were all concentrated in themselves, and they sought to lead an austere life, to conquer all passions, to forget the world, to have no ambition, and to prepare themselves, by fasting and punishment, for a life of eternal happiness when they should have shuffled off this mortal coil. This, of course, is all very well; and if fanatical people choose to adopt these views of life, it is a very harmless method of passing time away, and we have nothing to say against their doing so; but when these are the ostensible aims of a body of men, and when far different ones really occupy their attention, then it is that we complain, and feel impelled to stigmatize them as designing and hypocritical. This was the case with the monks; they professed profound humility and intense scorn for the avocations of the world, but in verity they were worldly as a Jew, and aspiring as "the blood of Lancaster." Their professions and practice did not agree, and this is one ground of our quarrel with them. But since they claim this complete immunity from the concerns and business of external life, and since they stake their reputation upon their works as students, and upon their pure lives as men of sanctity, and English music." "We owe to them our drama, which sprang out of the early church mysteries; and it would not be amiss if we owed to them a somewhat loftier notion than at present prevails, of the objects that theatrical representation should aim at. To them we owe the revival of learning, and, in a great degree, our Grammar Schools; and to them we may owe the multitudes of students that ought to be able to flock to them, as of old, when Oxford University alone had its 30,000 scholars. "Lastly, we owe to them an unending debt of gratitude for their services in the cause of literature and science. For ages, who but the monks and friars were the literary and scientific labourers of England-its poets, its historians, its botanists, its physicians, its educators? Where, but in the libraries of the monasteries, were the collections of the accumulated wisdom of ages to be found, each day beholding additions to the store, through the labours of the scribes of the scriptorium? And when at last printing came to revolutionize the entire world of knowledge, who but the monks themselves of Westminster and St. Albans was it that welcomed the new and glorious thing in the most cordial spirit, providing at once for the church, with his dark lantern and stealthy art and its disciples a home?" This is generous criticism; and unless we were anxious that the monks should have their merits recognized with more truth and intelligence than their ostensible upholders have displayed towards them, we should have found it wise to suppress these quotations. But let every institution have its just share of praise or blame; for it is unworthy of any disputant to detract for the sake of triumph. But the discriminating reader will perceive that only the last eulogy properly belongs to the monks; the previous benefits were dispensed by the religionists as a body, of which the monks were but a portion; and how much praise is due to the latter on the ground of such things as architecture, singing, show, theatres, and church music, may be inferred from the fact that all these things were directly antagonistic to their principles, and that they founded monasteries, made vows, absolved all passions, and lived in utter seclusion, for the express purpose of escaping from these frivolities. Of this we have further proof from the same authority, in the annexed paragraph, showing the avocations of a day of monastic life. It will be well, therefore, continually to bear in mind the proper distinction between religionists in general and monks in particular. The former were the workers; the latter disdained to go out into the active world and to perform the duties of vulgar life; they were ascetics, and lived apart from the world, considering themselves exonerated from any of its pleasures or pursuits, and avoiding its cares and hopes with equal un concern. "The matin bell rings; it is two hours after midnight, and the monks rise from their beds, and put on their rough and unadorned garments, meditating the while upon their past misdeeds and future amendment. At a given signal, all issue forth from the gate of the monastery, and proceed to the church, pausing at the threshold to make their prayers for the excommunicated, with their heads humbly bowed towards the ground. Protracted as is the service performed in the sacred edifice, all parties are expected to share in it with the greatest sympathy and most unflagging attention; and woe to him whom the prior may find asleep, as he goes his rounds through the step. But even the most zealous, no doubt, experience a sense of relief when some incident occurs to break the dreary uniformity of the proceedings. The general sins of the monk may be black enough, and the necessity of general pardon great; but it is evident how much more interest is felt when Brother - gets up, and in broken language, acknowledges to the abbot some evil desire that has just crossed his mind, and made him unmindful of the sacred duties of the place, and for which he beseeches his and God's mercy;-both are granted by the abbot. Prime at last comes; it is six o'clock; the superior again gives the signal, and the monks leave the church for the monastery. Labour next demands attention. From prime till ten o'clock every monk is employed in accordance with his strength and ability. Some go to the distant mill to prepare the flour, and some to the oven to bake the bread of the community; some resort to the garden, and a few to the workshop, where the mechanical operations are carried on. "But there is a species of work which those that are fitted for it find so delightful as to form no inconsiderable recompence for all the enjoyments that they gave up when they quitted the great world without; that is, the work of the scriptorium, employing one, two, three, or four writers, in proportion to the wealth and rank of the abbey, and the taste and liberality of the abbot. Favoured, then, indeed, are those chosen for the scriptorium-and they know it. See how busily they ply pen and pencil! Here is one copying an old Greek classic, and looking occasionally very lovingly at another book of 'Roman fame,' that the abbot has just brought him to be next transcribed. What exquisite writing! . As you look at him, forget not that you behold the earliest English artist, properly so called. Twelve o'clock at last! See these monks in the cloisters, how evidently impatient they are getting. They have tried again and again to go on with the book, and cannot succeed; albeit it tells of the thousand and one temptations that some very excellent saints passed very safely through. They have looked upon the pleasant green sward around them, which signifies the greenness of their virtue above others,' till they have grown undeni ably humble as to their practical admiration | being the depositories of the rich stores of of that particular virtue;-on that single ancient lore. In this way it is said that the tree in the centre, which implies the ladder monks preserved from destruction nearly all by which they aspire to celestial things, the ancient classics, and that they multiuntil they feel uncommonly weary, and plied the versions of the original texts both indisposed to climb. . . . Ah, there is the by copies and by translations. Although bell at last. Self-denial is easy now. One the statement is grossly exaggerated, we might almost suppose the monks, after all, will not cavil at it, but freely give to the did not want their dinner, so circumspectly monk all the glory of being a good and caredo they walk. In the blandest of tones are ful librarian. But what, we ask, is the the words brother and nono (grandfather) weight of such an argument? Besides, bandied about between the elder and the although the monks accumulated books, they youthful monks," &c., &c. did not freely dispense the knowledge and wisdom therein contained; the books, therefore, might as well have been burnt, as kept rotting and unread on dingy shelves in an inaccessible monastery. Although these treasures of learning were broken open to the public at a later period, and the world was thus allowed ultimately to peruse them, and to reap the benefits of the monkish care in preserving them, no praise is due to Monachism for this act; the monks kept the hoarded treasures to themselves as long as they could. All this, though very pleasant and entertaining, does not convey a very high idea of the individual dignity of a monk. A monastery appears to have been conducted very much on the same principle as a modern Mormon household, where a inan marries all his servants, and calls them wives, thus saving him the expense of paying them any wages. To insure order and obedience amongst these staid personages, whose animal spirits, nevertheless, would occasionally get loose, and run rampant when they were together, the abbot was entrusted with most despotic powers, and his simple will and pleasure formed sufficient authority for any measure of chastisement. At a later period in the monastic history, these boyish outbreaks of animal life gave way to a regular system of out-of-door recreation, and the ascetic became a booted and spurred son of Nimrod. And the demure nuns, too, after a time lost much of their original frigidity, and the prioress, amongst other good ladies in the reign of Queen Bess, of pious memory, was known to swear her pretty little oath," according to custom, the exact terms of which has been a sad bone of contention with our commentators. But enough of these fair dames, devout and pure; let them continue to go on "forgetting themselves to marble," or chaunting their melancholy lyrics; meantime, we turn to the monks in the scriptorium. 66 From the glimpse we previously took of these functionaries, we are not disposed to predict much of them as the possessors of creative or original genius;-and this is the only power which can truly be said to have any influence on the great world without. Great stress is, however, laid by our antagonists upon the good which has accrued from monastic institutions, in consequence of their In a literary sense, therefore, the monk can claim few laurels for his beneficial influence in voluntarily disseminating his hoarded stores of truth and learning. Let us, then, turn to see how he fares as an original author. On this point our formerly quoted authority gives us no information; and this is not a favourable sign. But, nevertheless, there were numerous eminent men in this order, from whom far be it from us to detract one iota. They were bright examples shining in a dark age. There is the glorious Bede, a man to whom the epithet Venerable is justly and pre-eminently applied. If Chaucer is the father of English poetry, Bede is the father of English history. He spent a long life in compiling, from the barbarous chronicles then extant, a new and complete history of his native country, and one which, even to the present day, is the text-book of every historian. It is in the capacity of chroniclers, and of chroniclers alone, that the monks can be said to shine in the world of letters. It is true there have been men of science amongst them,-the' alchymists, for instance, but their natural tastes, as well as their monastic laws, led them to be translators and analysts, rather than men of profound thought and original research. Without being more prolix, let us mention, in order | This is eminently suggestive. And again, to show the class of literature and the species of literary influence which emanated from monkhood, merely the names of Roger Bacon (of the fourteenth, not seventeenth century), Abbot Benedict, a chronicler of the twelfth century, together with the compilations of Melrose, Margan, and Waverly, with others, chiefly of private monasteriesall of them being very good, correct, and dry lists of facts and dates closely packed, and containing no troublesome reflections, and but few egotistical episodes all valuable enough to the antiquary, but no more likely to influence society, as a literary work, than Homer's catalogue of ships in the "Iliad." It would thus be gathered, that the influence of monastic literature, be it little or great, was not of a very liberal or enlightening tendency. And it is a question, indeed, whether the names and works of early writers, whom modern antiquaries have made notorious, were even generally known, much less appreciated, by the great mass of contemporary men. If, therefore, this literature has at last won a name, it is purely accidental, and not due to the good intentions of the monastic authors, but to the present spirit of veneration for the past. Having thus seen what is the literary tendency of the monastic labours, we now turn to the religious influence of the body; and our consideration of this topic will necessarily be brief, the more so, as in a prior paper we took a generalizing glance at this element in the discussion. We again allude to it merely for the purpose of recalling to recollection a few of the circumstances of the state of religion in general, and of Monachism in particular, which led to the consummation of the glorious protestant Reformation. We have nothing to detract from our previous assertions, and have at present merely to annex a few quotations from D'Aubigné's "History of the Reformation," confirmatory of those statements, and detailing the causes which led the conscientious Luther to abandon his order, and to declare himself an enemy to its principles and practices. First, then, "Luther saw," says our author, "that Monachism and the doctrine of salvation by grace were in flagrant opposition, and that the monastic life was wholly founded on the pretended merits of man." in writing on this subject to the Bishop and Deacons of Wittenberg, Luther embodies the following significant thesis:-" Monastic institutions," he writes, "to be useful, ought to be schools, in which the children may be brought up till they become adults; whereas, they are houses in which adults become children, and continue ever to be such." Not less strong was the reformer's antipathy to the traffic in gross mummeries and indulgences, then grown so notorious and abusive. "In All Saints' Church, Wittenberg," says D'Aubigné, "there was to be found a bit of Noah's ark; some soot that had come from the burning fiery furnace, in which the three young men were cast; a bit of wood from the manger in which our Lord was laid; hairs from the beard of the great Christopher; and nineteen thousand other relics of more or less value. At Schaffhausen, there was shown the breath of St. Joseph, as caught by Nicodemus in his glove. A seller of indulgences went abroad Wurtemberg retailing his wares, with his head set off with a large feather, taken from one of the wings of the archangel Michael." Indulgences were bought and sold, and they were brought to people's doors to save them the labour of an orthodox pilgrimage. The preachers made mountebanks of themselves to amuse the populace, and to get their money. "Such a preacher sung like a cuckoo; another hissed like a goose; one dragged to the altar a layman dressed in a monk's frock; a second told the most indecent stories; a third related the tricks of the apostle Peter-among others, how once, in an ale-house, he had cheated the landlord, by not paying his reckoning." The monastery of the Augustinians, at Wittenberg, being the place where Luther was principally educated, it was here that his reforming spirit first asserted itself; and the grounds of his desire for a thorough reformation were so good, that all the monks, except the prior, came over to his side, and then began to memorialize the theologians, who, on considering the matter, found that their conscience declared in favour of the Reformation, and they were obliged, though with fear, to report to the elector accordingly. Notwithstanding the obvious justice of Luther's cause, other monks "decried his doctrines as the most horrible heresy. 'Wait but a fortnight, or a month at the most,' said they,' and this noted heretic will be burnt.'" It is this malignant and ceaseless cry for the blood of reformers-for the precious life of good and independent men-which, rising up from the hearts of the monks in common with other sects of the Romish church, will form an everlasting blot on their annals, and will be the means of hurling the church into a deserved oblivion. The baleful influence of Monachism, when at the height of its power, may be judged from the salutary change which took place in all classes of men throughout Europe, when the cursed system had been dethroned by the force of truth and liberty. "In Germany," says Guizot, "the Reformation roused and sustained a liberty of thought, perhaps greater than anywhere else. In Denmark, a country where absolute power prevailed, where it penetrated even into the municipal institutions, as well as into the general ones of state, the influence of the Reformation wrought the enfranchisement and free exercise of thought in all directions. In Holland, amidst a republic, and in England, under a constitutional monarchy, and in spite of a religious tyranny long of a very harsh order, the emancipation of the human intelligence was accomplished. Finally, in France, and in a situation which seems least favourable to the effects of the religious revolution, in a coun try where it had been subdued, there even it was a principle of intellectual independence and freedom." On all these opposite political and religious combinations did the Reformation produce an instantaneous and a lasting reaction. Enfranchised humanity immediately threw off its former blind adherence to papal dictum, and declared that a free and an intelligent belief is the soul and spirit of all true religion. From this memorable epoch must the growing civilization of Europe be dated, and from the same period must the rapid decline of the monastic usurpation be registered. At this time, the monastic order lost almost all political power, and at the present day, according to our encyclopedists, there are but few monasteries in Europe, and even these are placed on a widely different basis from the original institutions. It is only a few days since, "the Chamber of Deputies of Turin," says the Times, after a long debate, and the rejection of a number of amendments, voted the first bill for the suppression of monasteries in Sardinia." Thus is the false system passing away from the earth. It was found to answer well enough with simple barbarians, but when men began to grow thoughtful and civilized, it vanished away, like the fair lady in the "Fairy Queen," when encompassed by the virtue-testing girdle of Florimel. 66 JOHN BROWN. Politics. WAS THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT JUSTIFIED IN ENTERING UPON THE PRESENT WAR WITH RUSSIA? AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-I. impelled by hunger and thirst to seek his daily food for the preservation and sustenance of his natural body. Life, in short, is one perpetual round of self-preservation, and the agonies of death are but a final struggle for the same great end. Every day of our existence, our involuntary actions proclaim the duty of self-defence; we cannot stumble without a convulsive effort to save ourselves; we dare not walk in utter darkness with the firm step of a daylight promenade; we must stoop to avoid the impending danger; we |
