ey wear their long beards; but sometimes the hermits are
admitted into holy orders, and then they wear black, and shave their
beards: however, they are not actually fixed to the lonely habitations
at first, but generally take seven or eight months trial. Many of the
abbes, whose power, you may be sure, is very great, and who receive an
homage from the inferiors, very flattering, have, nevertheless, often
quitted their power for a retirement above. They observe religiously
their abstinence from all sorts of flesh; nor are they permitted to eat
but within their cells. When any of them are very ill, they are brought
down to the convent; and all buried in one chapel, called St. Joseph.

The lay-brothers are about fourscore in number; they wear a brown habit,
and are shaved; their duty is to distribute bread, wine, and other
necessaries, to the poor and the pilgrims, and lodge them according to
their condition: and many of them are sent into remote parts of the
kingdom, as well as France and other Catholic countries, to collect
charity; while those who continue at home assist in getting in their
corn, and fetching provisions from the adjacent towns, for which
purposes they keep a great number, upwards of fifty mules.--These men
too have a superior among them, to whom they are all obedient.

There are also a number of children and young students, educated at the
convent who are taken in at the age of seven or eight years, many of
whom are of noble families; they all sleep in one apartment, but
separate beds, where a lamp constantly burns, and their decent
deportment is wonderful. Dom Jean de Cardonne, admiral of the galleys,
who succoured Malta when it was besieged by the Turks, was bred at
_Montserrat_, and when he wrote to the Abbe, "Recommend me," he said,
"to the prayers of my little brethren."

As I have already told you of the miracle of a murdered and violated
virgin coming to life, and of a child of three months old saying,
_Guerin, rise, thy sins are forgiven thee_; perhaps you will not like to
have further proofs of what miracles are wrought here, or I could give
you a long list, and unanswerable arguments to prove them.

_Frere Benoit d'Arragon_ was a hermit on this mountain, whose sanctity
of life has made his name immortal in the hermitage of St. Croix. The
following sketch of his life is engraven.

"Occidit hac sacra Frater Benedictus in sede,
Inclytus & sama, & religione sacer,
Hic sexaginta & s