styled themselves, "Soldiers of Christ," they settled down. CHAP. XVIII. Before long the wooden huts arose, with the little chapel and round tower or steeple by its side, with the abbot's house, the refectory, the kitchen, the barn for the grain, and other buildings'. And here they lived and prayed Their influence. and studied, and tilled the waste. Before long the fame of their leader would spread abroad far and wide. The pagan saw that he cared little for Frankish count or king; in their palaces he was no "reed shaken by the wind;" a Thierri quailed before him; a Brunehaut could not endure his pure and upright life, or the rigour with which firmly and fearlessly he would rebuke all cruelty and sensuality. Such a man the simple people could not but revere. He might be austere at times, he might with more zeal than love protest against their idolatry; but to the widow and the orphan, to the lame and the blind, to the sick and the afflicted, he was ever a friend, for them he ever had words of comfort, and mysterious consolation; they might not understand his doctrines, but they could understand his life'. orders, And thus the first part of the work was done, and The different time rolled on, and different orders were established; and it soon became clear that if the world was to be carried through the dissolution of the old society, if the various tribes were to be gathered into the fold of the Church, the different monastic orders must become one, they must pre 1 See above, p. 136. To the authorities quoted in Petrie's Round Towers as to the existence of these towers in the Irish monasteries, may be added Vita S. Virgilii, Messingham's Florilegium, p. 334. 2 This is well illustrated in the life of the celebrated S. Fiacre, an Irish anchorite, who established a monastery at Breuil about the year 628. "Avulso nemore monasterium construxit...flagrabat undique opinio illius sancta, et multi ad eum veni ebant; et ut haberet, unde necessi- 3 On the subsequent degeneracy S. Benedict. CHAP. XVIII. sent the appearance of an united army, firm, and compact. The crisis was a momentous one, but it had already proconsolidated by duced a Benedict. With his marvellous genius for organization he consolidated the various rules, and while Gallus and his companions were erecting their Celtic monasteries in Switzerland, troops of Anglo-Saxons were preparing to come forth and establish the Benedictine rule. And now, indeed, the missionary monk became the colonizer. The practised eye of men like Boniface or Sturmi sought out the proper site with heroic diligence, saw that it occupied a central position, that it possessed a fertile soil, that it was near some friendly watercourse. These points secured, the word was given; the trees were felled, the forest cleared, and the monastic buildings rose. Soon the voice of prayer was heard, and the mysterious chant and solemn litany awoke unwonted echoes in the forest-glades. While some of the brethren educated the young, others copied manuscripts, or toiled over the illuminated missal, or transcribed a Gospel or an Epistle, others cultivated the soil, guided the plough', planted the apple-tree or the vine, arranged the bee-hives, erected the water-mill, opened the mine, and thus presented to the eyes of men the kingdom of Christ, as that of One Who had redeemed the bodies no less than the souls of His creatures. Importance of their labours. Such were the men whom the Providence of God raised up to do the work of their day and their generation. Their numbers, their union, their singular habits, their constant services, could not fail to attract the notice of the heathen nations. They saw in them the pioneers not less of a moral than a physical civilization. With themselves force and brute strength were everything, with these mysterious strangers they appeared as nothing. On the one 1 See the Excursus "de cultu soli Germanici per Benedictinos," Mabillon, Acta SS. Bened. III, Præf. Palgrave's Normandy and England, 2 See Grant's Bampton Lect. p. 124. side was a horror of all dependence, an indomitable spirit CHAP. XVIII. of restlessness, on the other was a life of continued selfsacrifice and obedience1. "Never were instruments less conscious of the high ends they were serving, never were high ends more rapidly or more effectually achieved." Grant that afterwards these institutions "clear in the spring" proved "miry in the stream;" grant that in the days of their prosperity and ease, when the original necessities which called them forth had ceased to operate, they forgat their original simplicity, and became too often a byword and a proverb; yet we must not forget what European civilization owes to the self-devotion of a Columbanus. and a Gallus, a Boniface and a Sturmi. "The monks,' writes Livingstone, "did not disdain to hold the plough3. They introduced fruit-trees, flowers, vegetables, in addition to teaching and emancipating the serfs. Their monasteries were mission stations, which resembled ours in being dispensaries for the sick, alms-houses for the poor, and nurseries of learning. Can we learn nothing from them in their prosperity as the schools of Europe, and see naught in their history but the pollution and laziness of their decay?" superintend iv. Next to the prominence in the missionary work of iv. Episcopal the middle ages, of the monastic orders, few points are more ence. deserving of note, than the important aid which the work received from the superintendence of Bishops, and the deliberations of ecclesiastical Councils. Without entering into the vexed question as to the expediency of placing bishops at the head of missions in the first instance, we cannot but 1 Guizot's Lectures on Civilization, I. 120. Ozanam, p. 92. 2 The experience of all ages," observes Neander, "teaches us that Christianity has only made a firm and living progress, where, from the first, it has brought with it the seeds of all human culture, although they can be only developed by degrees." See the Report of the Committee CHAP. XVIII. notice how, during the Medieval period from first to last, the introduction of Christianity amongst any tribe was followed up as speedily as possible by the establishment of episcopal government. The first seeds of the Gospel may have been sown by inferior ministers, by the influence of a Christian queen, by the faithfulness of captives, by Christian merchants during trading voyages, and many other ways; but, uniformly in conformity with Apostolic practice, the management of the infant Churches was entrusted to a local episcopate. Sometimes a bishop headed from the first a body of voluntary adventurers; more often, as soon as any considerable success had been achieved, one of the energetic pioneers was advanced to the episcopal rank, and in this capacity superintended the staff of monks or clergy attending him, ordaining, as soon as possible, a native ministry from amongst the converted tribes, and establishing a cathedral or corresponding ecclesiastical foundation'. Usefulness of such a provision. And in such a course we trace, not merely, a conformity to primitive tradition, or an empty craving after hierarchical display, but we see that such a provision had other recommendations of the most practical character. Already before the inroad of the new races, the Bishops had become not only a kind of privy council to the Emperor, but were regarded in almost every town as the natural chiefs. They governed the people in the interior of the city; they alone stood bravely by their flocks when the barbarous host appeared before the defenceless town; while the civil magistrate and military leader often sought safety in flight, they alone were found able and willing to mediate between the people and the heathen chief, and to inspire him with awe. It is no wonder, then, that on the conversion of any district, the native king or chieftain was glad to have near him one who could assume the functions of the pagan high-priest, and advise him in any matter of civil or reli1 See Kemble's Saxons in England, 11. 360. bishops. gious moment. To influence, moreover, the various chiefs, CHAP. XVIII. to counteract the power of the native priesthood, it was very desirable that the bishop should at least stand on a footing of equality with the nobles. To say that when placed in this position, and in his priestly character regarded as superior to the king himself, he was prone to abuse his influence, and to foster many corruptions he ought to have checked, is only to say that he was not above the ordinary temptations of human nature. We Duties of the know, at any rate, what his generation expected from him. We know how it was required of the bishop that he should "ever be busied with reconciliation and peace, as he best might; that he should zealously appease strifes, and effect peace with those temporal judges who love right, that in accusations he should direct the lád, so that no man might wrong another, either in oath or ordeal; that he should not consent to any injustice, or wrong measure, or false weight; that every legal right should go with his counsel and with his witness; that, together with temporal judges, he should so direct judgments, that, as far as in him lay, he should never permit any injustice to spring up there; that he should ever exalt righteousness, and suppress unrighteousness; that he should flinch neither before the lowly nor the powerful, because he doeth naught if he fear or be ashamed to speak righteousness'." This was certainly no mean standard; and however far the bishops may at times have come short of it, it was a matter of no small importance to have in the court of the newly-converted chief, one who, by the duties of his office, was bound to be a counterpoise to the rude and capricious government of a military aristocracy, a mediator between the noble and the serf, a defender of the weak and the oppressed. The interposition of Boniface in the matter of Gewillieb's suc 1 Kemble's Saxons in England, Vol. II. 393. |