could he have continued in that blessed state. Yet those were troubled years at Kirkstall—adversa foras pugnas, intus timores, domesticorum insidias, rei familiaris inopiam, bonorum distractionem. Everything went wrong; without were fightings, within were fears. There was famine, and spoiling of goods, and misconduct of bad brethren. And Abbot Ralph made but an ineffectual effort to cope with these distresses. He was no strenuous administrator. He was busy dreaming dreams, and seeing visions. Once, he told Hugh, he even had a revelation of the Blessed Trinity, in which he distinctly saw three Persons—intribus personis apparentem! But these celestial sights seem not to have made his terrestrial way plain. Nevertheless, on thedeath of William he was made Abbot of Fountains; and, curiously enough, he seems to have done fairly well in this larger place. He enforced the rule, both in the mother house and in the depen-
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