"Where pleasant was the spot for men to dwell,
Amid its fair broad lands the abbey lay,
Sheltering dark orgies that were shame to tell,
And cowled and barefoot beggars swarmed the way,
All in their convent weeds of black, and white, and gray.
From many a proud monastic pile, o'erthrown,
Fear-struck, the brooded inmates rushed and fled;
The web, that for a thousand years had grown
O'er prostrate Europe, in that day of dread
Crumbled and fell, as fire dissolves the flaxen thread."
--_Bryant_.
VIII
_CAUSES AND IDEALS OF MONASTICISM_
All forms of religious character and conduct are grounded in certain
cravings of the soul, which, in seeking satisfaction, are influenced by
theoretical opinions. The longings of the human heart constitute the
impulse, or the energy, of religion. The intellectual convictions act as
guiding forces. As a religious type, therefore, the monk was produced by
the action of certain desires, influenced by specific opinions
respecting God, the soul, the body, the world and their relations.
The existence of monasticism in non-Christian religions implies that
whatever impetus the ascetic impulses in human nature received from
Christian teaching, there is some broader basis for monastic life than
the tenets of any creed. Biblical history and Christian theology furnish
some explanation of the rise of Christian monasticism, but they do not
account for the monks of ancient India.
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