To understand the monastic institution one must not only
study the isolated anchorite seeking a victory over a sinful self in the
Egyptian desert or the monk in the secluded cloister, but he must also
trace the fortunes of ascetic organizations, involving multitudes of
men, vast aggregations of wealth, and surviving the rise and fall of
empires. Almost every phase of human life is encountered in such an
undertaking. Attention is divided between hermits, beggars,
diplomatists, statesmen, professors, missionaries and pontiffs. It is
hoped the critical or literary student will appreciate the immense
difficulties of an attempt to paint so vast a scene on so small a
canvas. No other claim is made upon his benevolence.
There is a process of writing history which Trench describes as "a moral
whitewashing of such things as in men's sight were as blackamoors
before." Religious or temperamental prejudice often obscures the vision
and warps the judgment of even the most scholarly minds. Conscious of
this infirmity in the ablest writers of history it would be absurd to
claim complete exemption from the power of personal bias. It is
sincerely hoped, however, that the strongest passion in the preparation
of this work has been that commendable predilection for truth and
justice which should characterize every historical narrative, and that,
whatever other shortcomings may be found herein, there is an absence of
that unreasonable suspicion, not to say hatred, of everything monastic,
which mars many otherwise valuable contributions to monastic history.
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