A Child's History of the World

by V. M. Hillyer

Ever since the time of the martyrs, Christians who wanted to be very, very good indeed, went off into the wilderness and lived by themselves. They wished to be far away from other people, so that they could spend all their time praying and thinking holy thoughts. This, they believed was “being good.”

One of the strangest of these men who wanted to get away from others was named St. Simeon Stylites. He built for himself a pillar or column fifty feet high, and on the top of it he lived with room only to sit but not to lie down. There on the top he lived for many years, day and night, winter and summer, while the sun shone on him and the rain rained on him, and he never came down at all. He could be reached only by a ladder, which his friends used to bring him food. High up out of the world, he thought he could best lead a holy life. That was his idea of “being good” although we should think such a person simply crazy.

In the course of time, however, men who wanted to lead holy lives, instead of living alone as they had done at first, gathered in groups and built themselves homes. These men were called monks, and the house where they lived was known as a monastery or abbey. The head monk of such an abbey was called an abbot, and he ruled over the other monks like a father over his children, giving them orders and punishing them when he thought they needed it.

In the five hundreds there lived an Italian monk named Benedict. He believed very strongly that one must work if he was to be holy, that work was a necessary part of being holy. He thought, also, that monks should have no money of their own, for Christ had said in the Bible, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.” So Benedict started a club or order of monks for those people who would agree to three things:

The first thing they were to agree to was to have no money.

The second thing was to obey.

The third thing was not to marry.

Monks who joined this club were called Benedictines.

Now, you might think there would have been hardly any one who would promise for life three such things as to have no money, to obey the abbot—no matter what he told them to do—and never to marry. Nevertheless, there were a great many men in every country of Europe who did become Benedictines.

Usually the monks lived in little bare rooms like prison cells, and ate their very simple meals together at a single table in a room called the refectory. They prayed at sunrise and sunset, and many times during the day besides, and they even woke up at midnight to say their prayers. But praying was not all they had to do. Work of every kind they were obliged to do, and they did it joyfully, whether the work was scrubbing floors or digging in the garden.