The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-11-07
A PLACE OF SILENCE.
RULE FORBTDS SPEECH EXCEPT
 OF PRAISE OR PRAYER.

The Trappist Monastery of Mount Mel
 Ieray Is on Lonely Road That Leads
 Out of the World Fram CappuauIn.
 From Cappoquin, in Waterford, there is a lonely five-mile road that leads out of the world, up the slopes of the Knockmeledown mountains, to the Trappist moiastery of Mount MelIeray. Along this read you will find no sign of human industry until the cross-sur- mounted gates leading to the poor pas lures warn you that you are on holy ground. Once within those gates you have left the world far behind you, and are received into family to whom the voices of the world are silent, its inter- ests dead, and where the whole business of life is preparation for eternity.
 Founded sixty years ago by Irish Cis- tercians, who were expelled from France during the troubles that followed the accession of Louis Philippe, the comrnu- nifty has prospered under the industry of the monks, who have reclaimed a large tract of wild mountain land, planted it with trees, and reared the plain quadrangle of buildings that forms their prison and their home.
 It is place of silence, strangely peaceful and melancholy. The Trappist rule forbids all sueech except of praise or prayer and all necessary communi cation is made by signhs. This rule is only suspended in. the case of those -at- tending on guests or transacting busi- ness, but even the guests are expected to practice silence, and, indeed, the at- of the place is discouraging to speech. So, day in, day out, there is, save for the bell and the offices, hardly a sound but of the dripping rain, the chirp of birds, the wind in the trees, of footsteps in the cloisters. The fathers. wear a white, the lay brothers a brown habit; and in the long corridors and cloisters one sees them like ghosts pac- ing up and down with folded hands, avoiding the glance and even the pres ence of the stranger. The hush of hu- man voices dwells here like presence, strifling the mind, encouraging the soul.
 Here all day, however, mingle the sounds of labor and praise, the lowing of cattle with the booming of the chapel organ, the ring of the smiths anvil with the Gregorian plafn-song. From prime to compline the monastery bell is never for long dumb, but Is continually sum- the abbot from his cell, the father from his meditations, the brother from his work in the fields, the guest from the guest house; or ringing out it's of the uplifted Host across the empty mountain side, where there are no ears to hear or heads to be bowed, but only the idle cattle and the indiffer- ent birds.
 The monks rise at two in the morning all the year round, except on Sundays and feast days, when they rise an hour earlier. From that hour until eight at night they are continually occupied with the offices, as well as by their manual work, and their time is so divided and apportioned that the hours and days seem to glide away easily enough. They eat nothing but breat and vegeta- bles, and rink nothing but skim milk or water, and even of this spare diet they have but two meals in their long day, and sometimes only one. They sleep in their habits, in tiny cubicles, partitioned off in the great dormitory, and the fur niture of these cubicles is simply a raised wooden platform with a mattress laid upon it. Some of the monks are very old men, and when think of them in the chapel when they rise in the drear winter nights, unfed, un- warmed, uncheered by human converse, I can only hope that some great inward fire is comforting and supporting them with it's warmth.
 A monk may live here for twenty years and never speak to the man beside whom he kneels in chapel or eats in the refectory. And he may die here, and be laid in the burying ground among the rows of his brethren who sleep there without a human soul knowing what were his thoughts, his individualities, the little mental characteristics that en- dear human beings to one another. Truly it is an austere and withered life, but cannot think it is a difficult one. it out, has buoyed the dangerous reefs and lighted the difficult channels until there is nothing to be done but sail on into the harbor This, however, is an excursion into theology, which is not my business; only one cannot see these ghosts of once living men dreaming and