So we shall find it down through the centuries.
"The East had few great men," says Milman, "many madmen; the West,
madmen enough, but still very many, many great men." We have met some
madmen and some great men. We shall meet more of each type.
After 450 A.D., monasticism suffered an eclipse for over half a century.
It seemed as if the Western institution was destined to end in that
imbecility and failure which overtook the Eastern system. But there came
a man who infused new life into the monastic body. He systematized its
scattered principles and concentrated the energies of the wandering and
unorganized monks.
Our next visit will be to the mountain home of this renowned character,
fifty miles to the west of Rome. "A single monk," says Montalembert, "is
about to form there a center of spiritual virtue, and to light it up
with a splendor destined to shine over regenerated Europe for ten
centuries to come."
III
_THE BENEDICTINES_
Saint Benedict, the founder of the famous monastic order that bears his
name, was born at Nursia, about 480 A.D. His parents, who were wealthy,
intended to give him a liberal education; but their plans were defeated,
for at fifteen years of age Benedict renounced his family and fortune,
and fled from his school life in Rome. The vice of the city shocked and
disgusted him. He would rather be ignorant and holy, than educated and
wicked. On his way into the mountains, he met a monk named Romanus,--the
spot is marked by the chapel of Santa Crocella,--who gave him a
haircloth shirt and a monastic dress of skins.
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