painfully on, and among the brave master
builders was Benedict of Nursia. "He found the world, physical and
social, in ruins," says Cardinal Newman, "and his mission was to restore
it in the way,--not of science, but of nature; not as if setting about
to do it; not professing to do it by any set time, or by any series of
strokes; but so quietly, patiently, gradually, that often till the work
was done, it was not known to be doing. It was a restoration rather than
a visitation, correction or conversion. The new world he helped to
create was a growth rather than a structure."

But the chaos created by the irruption of the barbarous nations at this
period seriously affected the moral character and influence of the
clergy and the monks. The church seemed unequal to the stupendous
undertaking of converting the barbarians. The monks, as a class, were
lawless and vicious. Benedict himself testifies against them, and
declares that they were "always wandering and never stable; that they
obey their own appetites, whereunto they are enslaved." Unable to
control their own desires by any law whatsoever, they were unfitted to
the task before them. It was imperative, then, that unity and order
should be introduced among the monasteries; that some sort of a uniform
rule, adapted to the existing conditions, should be adopted, not only
for the preservation of the monastic institution, but for the
preparation of the monks for their work. Therefore, although the
Christianity of that time was far from ideal, it was, nevertheless, a
religion within the grasp of the reckless barbarians; and subsequent
events prove that it possessed a moral power capable of humanizing
manners, elevating the intellect, and checking the violent temper of
the age.

Excepting always the religious services of the Benedictine monks, their
greatest contribution to civilization was literary and educational[E].
The rules of Benedict provided for two hours a day of reading, and it
was doubtless this wise regulation that stimulated literary tastes, and
resulted in the collecting of books and the reproduction of manuscripts.
"Wherever a Benedictine house arose, or a monastery of any one of the
Orders, which were but offshoots from the Benedictine tree, books were
multiplied and a library came into existence, small indeed at first, but
increasing year by year, till the wealthier houses had gathered together
collections of books that would do credit to a modern university