ing the conflict of monastic sanctity with the natural virtues which God has enjoined. Montalembert, also, quotes this objectionable passage with apparent approbation. 216 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. stone of the resiuTection which the angel rolled awaj ; licked with thirsty tongue the pretended tomb of Jesus, and shed tears of joy as she entered the stable and beheld the manger of Bethlehem. In Egypt she penetrated into the desert of Nitria, prostrated herself at the feet of the hermits, and then returned to the holy land and settled permanently in the birth- place of the Saviour. She founded there a monastery for Je- rome, whom she supported, and three nunneries, in which she spent twenty years as abbess, until 404. Slie denied herself flesh and wine, performed, with her daugliter Eustochium, the meanest services, and even in sick- ness slept on the bare ground in a hair shirt, or spent the whole night in prayer. " I must," said she, '' disfigure my face, which I have often, against the command of God, adorned with paint ; torment the body, which has participated in many idolatries ; and atone for long laughing by constant weeping." Her liber- ality knew no bounds. She wished to die in beggary, and to be buried in a shroud which did not belong to her. She left to her daughter (she' died in 419) a multitude of debts, which she had contracted at a high rate of interest for benevolent purposes.' Her obsequies, which lasted a week, were attended by the bishops of Jerusalem and other cities of Palestine, besides clergy, monks, nuns, and laymen innumerable. Jerome apos- trophizes her : " Farewell, Paula, and help with prayer the old age of thy adorer ! " §43. Benedict of Nursia.. GEEGORirs M. : Dialogorum, 1. iv. (composed about 594 ; lib, ii. contains the biography of St. Benedict according to the communicutions of four abbots and disciples of the saint, Constantine, Honoratus, Valentinian, and Simplicius, but full of surprising miracles). Mabilj.on and other writers of the Benedictine congregation of St. Maurus : Acta Sancto- rum ordinis S. Benedict! in saeculorum classes distributa, fol. Par. 1668-1701, 9 vols, (to the year 1100), and Annales ordinis S. Bened. ' Jerome says, Eustocbium hoped to pay the debts of her mothi-r — probably by the help of others. Fuller justly remarks : " Liberality should have banks, as well as a stream." § 43. BENEDICT OF NUKSIA. 217 Par. iTOS-'Sg, 6 vols. fol. (to 1157). Dom (Domnus) Jos. De Mege: Vie de St. Benoit, Par. 1690. The Acta Sanctorum, and Butler, sub Mart. 21. Montalembeet : The Monks of the West, vol. ii. book iv. Benedict of Kursia, tlie founder of tlie celebrated order wliicli bears his name, gave to the "Western monasticism a fixed and permament form, and thus carried it far above the Eastern with its imperfect attempts at organization, and made it ex- ceedingly profitable to the practical, and, incidentally, also to the literary