The monks in their earlier missionary
times were full of enthusiasm and faith, no doubt. But when the Abbeys
were at the full height of their prosperity, when they were vast
landowners and the Abbot had his place in parliament, when the monastic
life was a career for an ambitious man, was the spirit of the place a
pure and holy one? That they submitted themselves to a severe routine
of worship does not go for very, much, because men very easily
accommodate themselves to a traditional and a conventional routine.
And thus one is half inclined to believe that the spirit of the monks
in their prosperous days was not very different from the spirit that
prompts railway extension, and that builds a railway terminus with an
ornamental facade.
And so when one sees prosperity spreading wider and lower, and the neat
villa residences begin to cluster round the knot of ancient buildings,
we must not conclude too hastily that our new wealth has swamped
ancient ideals; probably the ideals of prosperous people do not vary
very much, whether they are monks or railway officials. The monks in
their decadent days have no abounding reputation for virtue or
austerity. One likes to think of them as lost in splendid dreams of
God's glory and man's holiness, but there is little to show that such
was the case.
I do not want to decry the ideas of the monks in order to magnify our
modern middle-class ideals.
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