embroiled in military quarrels, or
to incite the fiercer passions of men when it suited their purpose.
Their opposition to kings and princes was often not based on a love of
popular freedom, but on an indisposition to share power with secular
rulers. The legislative enactments against heretics, many of which they
inspired, clearly show that they neither desired nor tolerated liberty
of speech or conduct. They were the Almighty's vicars on earth, before
whom it was the duty of king and subject to bow down. Vaughan writes of
the period just prior to the Reformation: "The great want was freedom
from ecclesiastical domination; and from the feeling of the hour,
scarcely any price would be deemed too great to be paid for that
object." The history of modern Jesuitism, against which the legislation
of almost every civilized nation has been directed, affords abundant
testimony to the inherent hostility of the monastic system, even in its
modified modern form, to every species of government which in any way
guarantees freedom of thought to its people. This stern fact confronts
the student, however much he may be inclined to yield homage to the
early monks. It must be held in mind when one reads this pleasing
sentence from Macaulay: "Surely a system which, however deformed by
superstition, introduced strong moral restraints into communities
previously governed only by vigor of muscle and by audacity of spirit, a
system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he was, like
his meanest bondman, a responsible being, might have seemed to deserve a
more respectful mention from philosophers and philanthropists."

The general effect of monasticism on the state is, therefore, not to be
determined by fixing the gaze on any one century of its history, or by
holding up some humane and patriotic monk as a representative product of
the system.

_The Agricultural Services of the Monks_

Europe must ever be indebted to Benedict and his immediate followers for
their services in reclaiming waste lands, and in removing the stigma
which a corrupt civilization had placed upon labor. Benedict came before
the world saying: "No person is ever more usefully employed than when
working with his hands or following the plough, providing food for the
use of man." Care was taken that councils should not be called when
ploughing was to be done or wheat to be threshed. Benedict bent himself
to the task of teaching the rich and the proud, the poo