From the abode of strife and turmoil to the home of peace, from the house of the world to the house of religion, from the Castle of Wallingford to the Abbey of Dorchester, do we gladly conduct our readers, satiated, we doubt not, with scenes of warfare.
What wonder, when the world was given up to such scenes, that men and women, conscious of higher aspirations, should fly to the seclusion of the monastic life, afar from
"Unloving souls with deeds of ill,
And words of angry strife."
And what a blessing for that particular age that there were such refuges, thickly scattered throughout the land—veritable cities of refuge. It was not the primary idea of these orders that they should be benevolent institutions, justifying their existence by the service rendered to the commonwealth. The primary idea was the service of God, and the salvation of the particular souls, who fled from a world lying in wickedness and the shadow of death, to take sweet counsel together, and walk in the House of God as friends.
Later on came a nobler conception of man's duty to man; and thence sprang the active orders, such as the Friars or Sisters of Mercy, as distinguished from the cloistered or contemplative orders.
Of course, in the buildings of such a society, the Church was the principal object—as the ruins of Tintern or Glastonbury show, overshadowing all the other buildings, dwarfing them into insignificance. Upon this object all the resources of mediæval art were expended. The lofty columns, the mysterious lights and shadows of a Gothic fane, the sculptures, the statues, the shrines, the rich vestments, the painted glass—far beyond aught we can produce, the solemn music,—all this they lavished on the Church as the house of prayer—
"It is the house of prayer,
Wherein Thy servants meet;
And Thou, O God, art there,