nedict cut the umbilical domestic
cord, and leaving his robes of purple and silken finery, suddenly
disappeared, leaving behind a note which was doubtless meant to be
reassuring and which was quite the reverse, for it failed to tell where
his mail should be forwarded. He had gone to live with a hermit in the
fastnesses of the mountains. He had desired to do something peculiar,
strange, unusual, unique and individual, and now he had done it.

Back of it all was the Cosmic Urge, with a fair slip of a girl, and
meetings by stealth in the moonlight; and then those orders from his
father to give up the girl, which he obeyed with a vengeance.

Monasticism is a reversal or a misdirection of the Cosmic Urge. The will
brought to bear in fighting temptation might be a power for good, if
used in co-operation with Nature. But Nature to the priestly mind has
always been bad. The worldly mind was one that led to ruin. To be good
by doing good was an idea the monkish mind had not grasped. His way of
being good was to be nothing, do nothing--just resist. Successfully to
fight temptation, the Oriental Monk regarded as an achievement.

One day, out on that perilous and slippery rock on the mountain-side,
Benedict ceased saluting the Holy Virgin long enough to conceive a
thought. It was this: To be acceptable to God, we must do something in
the way of positive good for man. To pray, to adore, to wander, to
suffer, is not enough. We must lighten the burdens of the toilers and
bring a little joy into their lives. Suffering has its place, but too
much suffering would destroy the race.

Only one other man had Benedict ever heard of, who put forth this
argument, and that was Saint Jerome; and many good men in the Church
regarded Saint Jerome as little better than an infidel. Saint Jerome was
a student of the literature of Greece and Rome--"Pagan Books," they were
called, "rivals of the Bible." Saint Anthony had renounced and denounced
these books and all of the learning of Paganism. Saint Anthony, the
father of Christian Monasticism, dwelt on the terrible evils of
intellectual pride, and had declared that the joys of the mind were of a
more subtle and devilish character than those of the flesh.

Anthony, assisted by inertia, had won the ear of the Church; and dirt,
rags and idleness had come to be regarded as sacred things.

Benedict took issue with Anthony.

* * * * *

The Monastic Impulse is a protest a