progress toward heaven. The positive aspect of monasticism is unre- served surrender of the whole man, with all his time and strength, to God ; though, as we have said, not within, but without the spliere of society and the order of nature. This devoted hfe is employed in continual prayer, meditation, fasting, and castigation of the body. Some votaries went so far as to reject all bodily employment, for its interference with devotion. But in general a moderate union of spiritual exercises with scien- tific studies or with such manual labor as agriculture, basket making, weaving, for their own living and the support of the poor, was held not only lawful but wholesome for monks. It was a proverb, that a laborious monk was beset by only one devil ; an idle one, by a legion. With all the austerities and rigors of asceticism, the monas- tic life had its spiritual joys and irresistible charms for noble, contemplative, and heaven-aspiring souls, who fled from the turmoil and vain show of the city as a prison, and turned the solitude into a paradise of freedom and sweet communion with God and his saints ; while to others the same solitude became a fruitful nursery of idleness, despondency, and the most peril- ous temptations and ultimate ruin.' § 31. Monasticism and the Bible. Monasticism, therefore, claims to be the highest and purest form of Christian piety and virtue, and the surest way to ^ Comp. the truthful remark of Yves de Chartres, of the twelfth century, Ep. 192 (quoted by Montalombert) : "Non beatum faciuut homincm secreta sylvarura, cacumina montium, si secum non habet solitudinem mentis, sabbatum cordis, tran- quillitatera conscientiae, ascensiones in corde, sine quibus omnem solitudinem comi- tantur mentis acedia, curiositas, vana gloria, periculosa; tentationum procellae." i § 31. MONASTICISM AND THE BTDLE. 161 lieaven. Then, we should think, it must be preeminently com- mended in the Bible, and actually exhibited in the life of Christ and the apostles. But just in this biblical support it falls short. The advocates of it uniformly refer first to the examples of Elijah, Elisha, and John the Baptist ; ' but these stand upon the legal level of the Old Testament, and are to be looked upon as extraordinary personages of an extraordinary age ; and though they may be regarded as types of a partial ancho- retism (not of cloister life), still they are nowhere commended to our imitation in this particular, but rather in their influence upon the world. The next appeal is to a few isolated passages of the ISTew Testament, which do not, indeed, in their literal sense require the renunciation of property and marriage, yet seem to recom- mend it as a special, exceptional form of piety for those Chris- tians who strive after higher perfection." Finally, as respects the spirit of the monastic life, reference is sometimes made even to the poverty of Christ and his apos- tles, to the silent, contemplative Mary, in contrast with