leading by their multiplicity to confusion; and this was enforced again by the council of Lyons; the pope alone having power to dispense with this rule. Yet, although a multiplicity of orders would lead to confusion in the Church, there is something very sublime in the idea which religious orders embody. It seems as if the whole mystical Body, the Church, penetrated with a deep sense of her various offices towards the world, mortified intercession, illustrated poverty, ministrations to the sick, patronage of the poor, preaching in rude districts, literary labors, burial of the dead, teaching of ascetic penance, and the like, detached off from her centre various small communities, each specially devoted to some one or more of these offices: they were as legates from her side, representing her in foreign places; and then the principle of obedience to the visible head of the Church circulated among them, encompassing and embracing them all, and maintaining still the great unity. The Church spoke with many voices, and yet remained one. Each order was a voice, speaking a particular tongue. It was like a mystical Whitsun miracle; and as the life flowed into them from Peter's chair, so to Peter's chair it flowed back again, to be re-inforced and purified. The various unity of the Church catholic has never been so magnificently represented to the world as by the religious orders." But," said I, "is there not some danger of creating a Church within a Church? In looking at the history of the Middle Ages we see two Churches, not

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one Church: the monastic Church and the secular Church." "Allow me," replied he, "to put a more accurate expression into your mouth, the monastic clergy and the secular clergy." "Well," said I, "at any rate there were two elements in the Church in perpetual conflict; and might not that danger be incurred again?" "You seem to speak," said he, "not very modestly, as if there were no monastic orders in the Church now. You forget that the greatest part of Christendom, east and west, is full of them; and that in this, as in some other things, your own particular Church has not feared to make a very marked distinction between herself and the rest of the catholic body. However, what you say is very true. Only it is no objection to religious orders, because it was not an evil inherent in them, but arose from other circumstances. The secular clergy were in a most awful state of corruption, and almost the whole episcopate lost in the grossest simony. Consequently, the austerities of the monasteries were a living reproach to the seculars, and bred a feud between them. There is a twofold division in the priestly office, which is not inaptly typified by the monastic and parochial lives; and what does but embody two offices of the one Church may seem as if it were dividing the Church into two. The doctrine of appeals was carried injudiciously far; and the decretals, much as they served a temporary end, brought forth evil fruits at last, as acts of questionable morality generally do. The appeals to the pope,

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which from the awful corruption of the bishops were at first a safeguard of pure discipline, soon became a screen for evil livers and unseemly strifes, and did but throw impediments in the way of a summary suppression of scandals." 'And," said I, "surely many of the popes fanned the flame of discord between the regulars and seculars in their own war against episcopacy, making use of the orders against the bishops, just as the kings of that day made use of the burghers against the aristocracy." Perhaps so," replied he: "at any rate such a danger is easily avoided with the peculiar constitution of your Church, by tying monastic orders in each diocese to the several chairs of the respective bishops. By placing them under the complete control of the bishops in every respect, and not in the nominal way in which colleges are connected with their visitors, the danger you apprehend would be met and avoided. Your Church is at present nearly destitute of a monastic voice, or speaks very faintly with it in your universities. Much of what would be spoken by it, did it exist, is now spoken in fantastic ways outside the Church."

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"What then," I asked, "are the advantages which you would anticipate from a revival of monastic orders among the English?" Why," replied he, my last words will lead you to one of them. I think they would form a safety-valve for much to escape, which now condenses into dissent.

You are

a Church without penances, the first the world has

ever seen; and there are many penitents whose illinstructed enthusiasm, in itself laudable, leads them to show openly, by some strong step and by taking up some obviously new position, their horror of the state of sin from which they are emerging. They become dissenters. And however ignorant they may be, however sad the consequences to themselves, I do not think there is in your Church sufficient provision for such men; and they are probably not few. Almost any modification of monastic orders would meet this. Again, you have a great deal of zeal for teaching and visiting, and being actively useful in a Christian way. Such a zeal, however ill-mannered its bearing may be at times, is surely not culpable. And now it either separates off from the Church, or thwarts the clergy. To make such persons subordinate clergy, would probably secularize the clergy, and, besides that, the case of pious, zealous women, would not be provided for. Monastic orders would satisfy this want fully. Indeed, the principle of obedience, developed in its very strongest way, is the life of monasticism; and religious orders would, with God's blessing, be very likely to create that principle among you. This, of itself, would go far to kill dissent. Men would be monks who now are fieldpreachers. Men would seek to satisfy the cravings of penitent zeal in the strict submission of a monastery, who now seek to do some great things for the Lord in the wild and impure sect of the Independents. How wonderfully has the Roman Church

ever embraced and contained in unity very heterogeneous religious elements! The monastic orders alone explain this."

"Another advantage would be an ability to cope with the immense manufacturing population of your country. I see no other means by which you can cope with it as a Church should. Picture to yourself the huge moral wildernesses of countless souls, who throng the earth around the English factories. What spiritual lever do you apply to these masses of corrupt yet energetic life? In each district two or three churches, with perhaps four priests, men of soft habits, elegant manners, and refined education. This forms what is called the English Church in that manufacturing district. Surely it is unnecessary to point out the absurd inadequacy, or genteel feebleness, call it which you please, of such a moving power; neither have you, nor are you likely to have at your command, the pecuniary means to multiply churches and priests by hundreds and by thousands. But set down one or two ecclesiastical factories amongst them, in the shape of monasteries; combine in them much of the rough, rude energy, which now evaporates in chartism or dissent, and you will soon see a very different state of things indeed. Transplant the monastery of Camaldula from the bleak Apennine frontier of Romagna, with its cenobites and hermits; let there be one incessant round of prayer, preaching, education, roughly, in season and out of season; send the poor monks out among the