Chaos reigned, selfishness and lust ruled the hearts of
Rome's conquerors. The West was desolated by barbarians; the East
dismembered and worn out by theological controversy. War had ruined the
commerce of the cities and laid waste the rural districts. Vast swamps
and tracts of brush covered fields once beautiful with the products of
agricultural labor. The minds of men were distracted by apprehensions of
some frightful, impending calamity. The cultured Roman, the untutored
Goth and the corrupted Christian were locked in the deadly embrace of
despair. "Constantly did society attempt to form itself," says Guizot,
"constantly was it destroyed by the act of man, by the absence of the
moral conditions under which alone it can exist."
But notwithstanding failures and discouragements, the work of
reconstructing society moved painfully on, and among the brave master
builders was Benedict of Nursia. "He found the world, physical and
social, in ruins," says Cardinal Newman, "and his mission was to restore
it in the way,--not of science, but of nature; not as if setting about
to do it; not professing to do it by any set time, or by any series of
strokes; but so quietly, patiently, gradually, that often till the work
was done, it was not known to be doing. It was a restoration rather than
a visitation, correction or conversion. The new world he helped to
create was a growth rather than a structure."
But the chaos created by the irruption of the barbarous nations at this
period seriously affected the moral character and influence of the
clergy and the monks.
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