hair like a wild beast, who in this position had withstood for twenty years the severe winters of that climate. A Jesuit ' Dial. i. c. 8. Severus sees in this a wonderful example of the power of Christ over wild beasts. - L. c. i. c. 11. § 32. LIGHTS AND SHADES OF MONASTIC LIFE. 169 missionaiy describes one of the class called Tapasonias, that he had his body enclosed in an iron cage, with his head and feet outside, so that he could walk, but neither sit nor lie down ; at night his pious attendants attached a hundi'ed lighted lamps to the outside of the cage, so that their master could exhibit himself walking as the mock light of the world.' In general, the hermit life confounds the fleeing from the outward world with the mortification of the inward Morld of the corrupt heart. It mistakes the duty of love ; not rarely, under its mask of humility and the utmost self-denial, cherishes spiritual pride and jealousy; and exposes itself to all the dan- gers of solitude, even to savage barbarism, beastly grossness, or despair and suicide. Anthony, the father of anchorets, well understood this, and warned his followers against overvaluing solitude, reminding them of the proverb of the Preacher, iv. 10 : " Woe to him that is alone when he falleth ; for he hath not another to help him up." The cloister life was less exposed to these errors. It ap- proached the life of society and civilization. Yet, on the other hand, it produced no such heroic phenomena, and had dangers peculiar to itself. Chrysostom gives us the bright side of it from his own experience. " Before the rising of the sun," says he of the monks of Antioch, " they rise, hale and sober, sing as with one mouth hymns to the praise of God, then bow the knee in prayer, under the direction of the abbot, read the holy Scriptures, and go to their labors ; pray again at nine, twelve, and three o'clock ; after a good day's work, enjoy a simple meal of bread and salt, perhaps with oil, and sometimes with pulse ; sing a thanksgiving hymn, and lay themselves on their pallets of straw without care, grief, or murmur. When one dies, they say : ' He is perfected ; ' and all pray God for a like end, that they also .may come to the eternal sabbath-rest and to the vision of Christ." Men like Chrysostom, Basil, Gre- gory, Jerome, Nilus, and Isidore, united theological studies with the ascetic exercises of solitude, and thus gained a copious knowledge of Scriptm-e and a large spiritual experience. ' See Ruffner, 1. c. i. 49 sqq., and Wuttke, 1. c. p. 369 sqq. 170 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. But most of the monks either could not even read, or had too little intellectual culture to devote themselves with ad- vantage to contemplation and study, and only brooded over