Nothing is more incomprehensible to the Christians of the nineteenth century than the lives of the hermits, and the general verdict passed upon them is, that they were useless, idle men, who fled from the world to avoid its work, or else were possessed with an unreasoning superstition which turned them into mere fanatics.
But this verdict is one-sided and unjust, and founded upon ignorance of the world of crime and violence from which these men fled,—a world which seemed so utterly abandoned to cruelty and lust that men despaired of its reformation; a world wherein men had no choice between a life of strife and bloodshed, and the absolute renunciation of society; a world wherein there was no way of escape but to flee to the deserts and mountains, or enter the monastic life, for those, who, as ancient Romans, might have committed suicide, but as Christians, felt they must live, till God in His mercy called them hence.
And so while the majority of those who sought God embraced what is commonly called, par excellence, the religious life, others sought Him in solitude and silence; wherein, however, they were followed by that universal reverence which men, taught by the legends of the Church, bestowed on the pious anchorite.
Poverty, celibacy, self-annihilation, were their watchwords; and in contemplation of death, judgment, Hell, and Heaven, these lonely hours were passed.
Such a man was Meinhold, with whom the youthful sons of Brian Fitz-Count had found refuge. From childhood upwards he had loathed the sin he saw everywhere around him, and thence he sought the monastic life; but as ill-hap would have it, found a monastery in which the monks were forgetful of their vows, and slaves of sin, somewhat after the fashion of those described in Longfellow's "Golden Legend," for such there were, although, we believe, they were but exceptions to the general rule—
"Corruptio optimi est pessima."
The corruption of that which is very good is commonly the worst of all corruption: if monks did not rise above the world, they fell beneath it. Meinhold sternly rebuked them; and, in consequence, when one day it was his turn to celebrate the Eucharist, they poisoned the wine he should have used. By chance he was prevented from saying the Mass that day, and a poor young friar who took his place fell down dead on the steps of the altar. Meinhold shook off the dust of his feet and left them, and they in revenge said a Mass for the Dead on his behalf, with the idea that it would hasten his demise; for if not religious they were superstitious.
Then he determined that he would have nought more to do with his fellow-men, and sought God's first temples, the forests. In the summer time he wandered in its glades, reciting his Breviary, until he found out a place where he might lay his head.
A range of limestone hills had been cleft in the course of ages by a stream, which had at length scooped out a valley, like unto the "chines" in the Isle of Wight, and now rushed brawling into the river below, adown the vale it had made. In the rock, on one side of the vale, existed a large cave, formed by the agency of water, in the first place, but now high and dry. It had not only one, but several apartments; cavern opened out of cavern, and so dark and devious were their windings, that men feared to penetrate them.