Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-04-10
, MONASTIC LIFE.
ROUTINE AT cHARTREUSE FROM
 MORNING TO NIGHT.

Peep st a Carthusian Monks Abode.
 Furniture of the Barest Description.
 Ono Meal a Day-vow of Silence-The
 Rules Relaxed.
 After breakfast guests are conducted round the monastery, and even ladies-who are not allowed to stay over night within the walls, but get shelter at the old hospital near, which is superintended by the Sisters of Mercy may, if armed with a papal license, come across and have a peep at the arrange ments of this misogynist household. The Chartreuse has no architectural glories and would never make picturesque ruin- In- deed the churches which the Carthusians have generously built in the neighboring will lages are far richer in decoration and more elaborate in style than their own chapels. There is, however, plenty to interest if you care to take a look round.
 THE CARrHUsIAN's ABODE.
 Each pere has two little rooms, with a workshop and garden attached, all in one place, so that, unlike the usual monastic arrangements the Carthusian's abode is self contained, Every Carthusian is, in fact, practically hermit, with just little more accommodation than the traditional hermit usually had. That may help to account for the remarkable fact that this order was about the only one which never degenerated so far from the primitive type as to need reformation. Dormitory gossip, drawing room scandal mongering, hanging about the pantry doors, quarreling, swearing and steal ing pastry were not possible under such social conditions. The furniture is of the barest de- sciption. It consists of a wooden bed;
 That wooden bed,
 Which shall their coffin be when dead.
 chair, a writing and dining table. a joiner's bench, plain bookcase, the usual helps to devotion, "the suffering Son of Man upon the wal, |" and a few religious pictures.
 A monks food consists of one meal a day, This is pushed in by sliding grating in the cloister wall, so that he never sees the person who brings it. It is made up of soup, fish and vegetables on ordinary days, and on Fri days and during Lent of simple bread and water, though this prison fare was, in stricter times, the rule for three days in each week. The silent fathers are now allowed the great luxury of a fire in cold weather, though that is worldly concession to modern ideas of comfort. The severity of the old fireless rule may be imagined when it is remembered that the monastery is over 4OOO feet up and is buried in snow great portion of the year. There is pathetic story of father belong ing to the other great Carthusian house in sunny Calabria who, when elected to the highest Carthusian dignity of prior of the parent monastery, willingly came, but came knowing for certain that the severity of the climate would speedily kill him. It was call from the Lord, not to better living uo oy,I r- to die.
 THE VOW OF SILENCE.
 The great VOW of silence, so characteristic of the Carthusians, was easily kept by the self contained arrangement just mentioned. Even on festive days, when they ate in com mon, this rule was strictly observed. It has been so far relaxed in modern times that the fathers are allowed to walk out together once week and converse with one another, or even to speak to others when spoken to- The time they have to spare from the offices, which are particularly lengthy, is taken up with reading, meditation, joinery, gardening and cleaning. These fathers are mostly aristocrats of various nationalities. They are at present about forty in number The entrance fee is large, the novitiate long and severe, the great life VOWS of fearful rigidity The horsehair shirt and inenless rule admit of no exception, and, though it is taking a rather shallow and supercilious view of be- lief to call these Carthusians "last of the people who believe" still it seems certain that nothing short of an overmastering be- lief could make life possible here There is certainly nothing in the appearance of the monks themselves, nothing in their habits and surroundings, to allow one to indulge in the Erasmus vein. The glimpses one gets are, with one or two exceptions, of pale, worn deathlike faces, with the shadow as of a great sorrow upon them. They are not faces of the hue and expression suitable for popu- lar cartoons for those traditional scenes where monastic life is represented as an after dinner nap on a fowery veranda, or the hug. ging of a claret cask in an underground cellar.
 As you leave the cells your feeling is that of charitable pity-pity for the narrowness which leads men, Carthusians and others not SO logical, to think that this world and this life are the devils and not Gods. But this is qualified by the reflection that men of rank may stay in the world and spend their money | in worse ways than in building churches for poor villages, or in endowing hospitals and schools, and deaf and dumb institutions for poor districts: spend their time in worse ways than in the manufacture of medicinal iqueurs, the culture of aromatic flowers, in fasting and prayer, and employ their intel lectual gifts, poetical and political, in worse | ways than in silence. The monastery library is we'll stocked with books, chiefly of devo- l tiopa1 hal y.a ctor -Good WOrds