become the most highly applauded practical interpretation of Christianity. Its precepts represented the requirements of the Christian criterion of Salvation applied to earthly life. Like all great systems which have widely prevailed and long endured, it was not negation, but substitution. If it condemned usual modes of pleasure, this was because of their incompatibility with the life it inculcated. The Regula of Benedict set forth a manner of life replete with positive demands. Its purpose was to prescribe for those who had taken monastic vows that way of living, that daily round of occupation, that constant mode of thought and temper, which should make a perfected Christian, that is, a perfect monk. And so broad and spiritually interwoven were its precepts that one of them could hardly be obeyed without fulfilling all. Read, for example, the beautiful seventh chapter upon the twelve grades of humility, and it will become evident that whoever achieves this virtue will gain all the rest: he will always have the fear of God before his eyes, the terror of hell and the hope of heaven; he will cut off the desires of the flesh; he will do, not his own will, but the Lord's; since Christ obeyed His Father unto death, he will render absolute obedience to his superior, obeying readily and cheerfully even when unjustly blamed; in confession he will conceal no evil thought; he will deem himself vilest of all, and will do nothing save what the regula of the monastery or the example of the elders prescribes; he will keep from laughter and from speech, except when questioned, and then he will speak gently and humbly, and with gravity, in few words; he will stand and walk with inclined head and looks bent on the ground, feeling himself unworthy to lift up his eyes to heaven: through these stairs of humility he will reach that perfect love of God which banishes fear, and will no longer need the fear of hell, as he will do right from habit and through the love of Christ.
Having thus pointed out the way of righteousness, Benedict's regula gives minute precepts for the monk's conduct and occupation through each hour of the day and night. No time, no circumstance shall be left unguarded, or unoccupied with those acts which lead to God. Wise was this great prototypal regula in that its abundance of
