Church; the consequence was that the Church became rapidly assimilated to the world. In the hard times the confessor was regarded as the athlete. His endurance then toughened his spiritual muscles. Now the occasion for that fine athleticism had passed. How was the pure flame of devotion to be kept clear and bright in the stifling atmosphere of a world nominally Christian, but really almost as unspiritual as the pagan society it was succeeding? That was the question of the hour. Earnest men answered it in a way that we may think selfish, if not cowardly. Instead of remaining in the world as its leaven, they fled from the world to escape its contamination. But the mischief of their mistake has been exaggerated where it was least hurtful. These men were not lost to society as moral influences. It became customary for town bishops and others to take their holidays in a retreat with an anchorite for a spiritual tonic, as modern town workers recruit their strength by mountaineering or some other recreation in touch with nature. The fame of great anchorites spread through the Church and held up the ideal of the simple life to the people of a decadent civilisation. Some were preachers whom the multitude sought after like John the Baptist in the wilderness. Again and again a monk trained by the discipline of solitude was called to fill some high post in the Church, and then, responding to the unwelcome summons, proved himself singularly effective by reason of his detachment from secular concerns.
There is another side; but that is scarcely where the superficial observer might look for it. It is doubtful if the men who fled from the world could have influenced it much more by adopting the ordinary life of citizens than they did by awakening the popular imagination and firing the popular enthusiasm from their lonely retreats.
The real mischief of monasticism was more remote and subtle, but not less hurtful in the end. The empire suffered by the withdrawal of so many of the strongest men from public service. Besides, for the best people not to marry, and for the continuation of the population to be left to
