On monastic institutions, Mrs Sinnett has some very just and equitable remarks.
"Monasticism was a resolute attempt to subject the outward to the inward life; and through whatever devious paths it may have wandered, it set out from the true and high principle, that the spiritual and immortal man should attain dominion over the mere animal nature; and it grounded itself on the undeniable truth that the indulgence of the senses 'wars against the soul.' The objects it has in view are to us also true and holy, though we may differ as to the means of their attainment; yet even in these, the monks were not perhaps wholly wrong. Solitude and silence are unquestionably amongst the means of spiritual elevation; poverty is, in most instances, healthful to the soul, a means of obtaining a simplicity good for both body and mind; obedience is, beyond doubt, the school of patience, in which we best learn to combat our original sins of pride and self-will; but we have learned, from the experience of the Ascetics, a juster measure for these things, which, perhaps, a priori, we might not have been able to discover. They have tried the experiment for us; and now that its history is before us, it is easy to determine that the attempt to rend asunder the two natures so wonderfully combined in us, to put asunder what God has joined, is one that cannot come to good. Solitude, though often beneficial to full minds and active intellects, is more than the vacuity of ignorance can support. Poverty, pushed as it was by the Ascetics to the excess of destitution, tends, it is to be feared, to blight both body and soul. Obedience, carried beyond reasonable limits, leads to abject meanness and hypocrisy, as the history of convents in general will abundantly show. Yet, after making whatever deductions we fairly can for their mistakes, we still find, in the history of these singular institutions, much that is worthy of our deepest study; and the more so, the more firmly we are convinced of the utter impossibility of their restoration."—(P. 114.)
Restoration! Restore the Heptarchy! as Canning on one occasion exclaimed. And yet we understand that of late there has been a gentle sigh, and some half-formed projects for the revival of monastic institutions. We hear from the preface to Maitland's "Essays on the Dark Ages," that a circular was issued by persons of no contemptible influence in the church, headed "Revival of Monastic and Conventual Institutions on a plan adapted to the exigencies of the reformed Catholic religion." As Mr Maitland says of the plan—it would be after all but "a playing at monkery." Where, we would ask, is the irrevocable vow? Where is the unchangeable fate, the civil death, that awaited the inmate of the monastic house? Where is the superstitious admiration of the crowd without? Where all those religious ideas that made renouncement of life so sacred and meritorious? And where, moreover, is that insecure and unprotected condition of a half-civilised age, which made the retreat of the monastery so precious to the wearied and wounded spirit? You are charmed with an oasis in the desert;—you must spread the desert first, if you would realise the charm. What are monastic walls, to you,—who can take a lodging in Cheapside, and be as solitary, as undisturbed, as utterly forgotten as if the grave had closed upon you?
Viewed strictly as a portion of the past, and in relation to all the circumstances that gave origin and value to them, we confess we have a partiality for the old monasteries. Some of the popular censures which are still dealt upon them are founded upon erroneous ideas of the nature and purposes of such institutions. They are blamed repeatedly for their ignorance and their neglect of learning. They were not instituted for the preservation or advancement of learning. Originally they were not even ecclesiastical, but consisted of pious laymen, who wished to devote their souls to God, by drawing them out of the mire of their daily lives. Profane learning was more frequently regarded as a thing forbidden, than numbered amongst the objects which might engage their attention. "Solitude, labour, silence, and prayer—these were the elements of monastic life; and the question was not, how the monk might most effectually gather and diffuse learning, but—when, indeed, any question came to be raised—whether he might lawfully cultivate learning at all?"—(Maitland, p. 160.)
The charge of indolence, also—(the two epithets of "lazy and ignorant," generally go together, in the popular phraseology, when monks are spoken of)—is made without any discrimination, and bestowed as well upon bodies of men remarkable for their industrious and persevering cultivation of the soil, as upon the pampered and corrupted monastery. Amongst the rules of the Benedictines, labour figures conspicuously. In many cases it was the hard work of emigrants who first subdue the soil, that was performed by these sacred and secluded men. But, when an admiring world thought fit, in its sagacity, to reward a voluntary poverty by endowing and enriching it,—when the monastery became a wealthy landlord, with treasures of gold and silver in its coffers—then, as might be expected, labour declined,—the monk grew lazy, and the description which Mrs Percy Sinnett quotes from an old author, was, no doubt, very generally applicable to him. "Every other minute he comes out of his cell—then goes in again—then comes out again to look if the sun is not near setting." The world behaved towards the monk as an old gentleman we remember to have read of in some play, who, charmed with the temperance which his young friend had exhibited, rewarded it by putting his cellar of choice wines at his disposal. He was afterwards indignant at finding that the virtue of his protégé had not increased under his kind encouragement.
The remarks of Mrs P. Sinnett, which we have just quoted, on monastic life, usher in a very entertaining account of the origin and growth of the "Abbey of Altenberg." Here is a fragment of it:—
"The half-decayed mountain-castle, where the community was now established, was found to be in some respects unsuitable to its new destination; and the Abbot Berno, therefore, with the consent and assistance of the Counts of Berg, proposed to build a new convent down in the valley, where already, on a pleasant meadow-land, stood a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.
"When the monks were called together to consider of the precise spot where the edifice should stand, it was found that they could by no means agree about it; some thought it should be built at the northern entrance of the valley, others that it should be at the foot of the castle-hill; others, again, that it should be immediately on the banks of the Dhun. In this dilemma, Abbot Berno, according to the narratives of the monks, proposed what seems a curious method of coming to a decision.
"Modern frivolity feels tempted to giggle when it hears that the animal always in especial favour with the monks was the ass. His simplicity of manners, humility of carriage, and usually taciturn habits,—the sign of the cross which he bears on his back—the manner in which he hangs his head, as the rules of most orders command the pious brethren themselves to do,—the patience with which he submits to discipline,—all this naturally recommended him to these devout recluses. They were even ready, it seems, to regard him as a kind of oracle in difficult cases.
"It was, we may recollect, not merely the spirit of monasticism, but the spirit of all those ages, to see in what we call trivial chances the ordination of a higher power. Do we not find, in the history of Nurnberg, that in the fourteenth century, two hundred years after the building of Altenberg convent, a worthy and respected burgher of that city, one Berthold Tucher, of the renowned family of that name, wishing to know whether it was the will of God that he should remain in the world and marry again, or take holy vows and devote himself to the monastic life did, after praying devoutly in the little chapel in his house, 'at the corner of the Milk Market, there where you turn into Dog Alley,' resolve to ascertain the Divine pleasure by the simple method of tossing up a halfpenny; three times did he toss it, and three times did it come up heads, and thereupon he accepted the oracle, and went directly and fetched himself a wife.