d to the
priesthood, his life there was rather that of a missionary and apostle
than of a solitary. He cultivated the soil, fed the poor, healed the
sick, preached to the neighboring population, directed the young monks,
who in increasing numbers flocked to him, and organized the monastic
life upon a fixed method or rule, which he himself conscientiously
observed. His power over the hearts and the veneration in which he was
held is illustrated by the visit of Jotila, in 542, the barbarian king,
the victor of the Romans and master of Italy, who threw himself on his
face before the saint, accepted his reproof and exhortations, asked his
blessing, and left a better man, but fell, after ten years' reign, as
Benedict had predicted, in a great battle with the Graeco-Roman army
under Narses. Benedict died, after partaking of the holy communion,
praying, in standing posture at the foot of the altar, on the 21st of
March, 543, and was buried by the side of his sister, Scholastica, who
had established a nunnery near Monte Cassino, and died a few weeks
before him. They met only once a year on the side of the mountain for
prayer and pious conversation. On the day of his departure two monks saw
in a vision a shining pathway of stars leading from Monte Cassino to
heaven, and heard a voice that said by this road Benedict, the well
beloved of God, had ascended to heaven.[7]

His biographer, Pope Gregory I., in the second book of his Dialogues,
ascribes to him miraculous prophecies and healings, and even a raising
of the dead.[8] With reference to his want of secular culture and his
spiritual knowledge, he calls him a learned ignorant and an unlettered
sage.[9] At all events he possessed the genius of a lawgiver, and holds
the first place among the founders of monastic orders, though his person
and life are much less interesting than those of a Bernard of Clairvaux,
a Francis of Assisi, and an Ignatius of Loyola.

The rule of St. Benedict, on which his fame rests, forms an epoch in the
history of monasticism. In a short time it superseded all contemporary
and older rules of the kind, and became the immortal code of the most
illustrious branch of the monastic army, and the basis of the whole
Roman Catholic cloister life.[10] It consists of a preface or
_prologus_, and a series of moral, social, liturgical, and penal
ordinances, in seventy-three chapters. It shows a true knowledge of
human nature, the practical wisdom of Rome, and adapta