Thy hallowed flock to greet."
Here they met seven times daily, to recite their offices, as also at the midnight office, when only the professed brethren were present. In these active times men may consider so much time spent in church a great waste of time, but we cannot judge other generations by our own ideas. A very sharp line was then drawn between the Church and the world, and they who chose the former possessed a far greater love for Divine worship than we see around us now, coupled with a most steadfast belief in its efficacy. "Blessed are They who dwell in Thy house; they will be alway praising Thee," was the language of their hearts.
Here men who had become the subjects of intense grief—from whom death, perhaps, had removed their earthly solace—the partners of their sorrow or joy—found refuge when the sun of this world was set. Here, also, studious men, afar from the clamour and din of arms, preserved for us the wisdom of the ancients. Here the arts and sciences lived on, when nought save war filled the minds of men outside. Well has it been said, that for the learning of the nineteenth century to revile the monastic system is for the oak to revile the acorn from which it sprang.
But most of all, when the shadow of a great horror of himself and his past fell upon a man, how blessed to have such an institution as a mediæval monastery wherein to hide the stricken head, and to learn submission to the Divine Will.
Such a home had Wulfnoth found at Dorchester Abbey.
The year of his novitiate had passed, and he had won the favour of his monastic superiors. We do not say he had always been as humble as a novice should, or that he never, like Lot's wife, looked back again to Sodom, but the good had triumphed, and the day came for his election as a brother.
Every day after the Chapter Mass which followed Terce, the daily "Chapter" was held, wherein all matters of discipline were settled, correction, if needed, administered, novices or brethren admitted by common consent, and all other weighty business transacted. Here they met four centuries later, when they affixed their reluctant seal to their own dissolution, to avoid worse consequences.
It was here that, after the ordinary business was over, the novice Alphege, the once sanguinary Wulfnoth, rose with a calm and composed exterior, but with a beating heart, to crave admission into the order by taking the life vows.
The Abbot signed to him to speak.
"I, Wulfnoth the novice, crave admission to the full privileges and prayers of the order, by taking the vows for life, as a brother professed."