e formally copied from
English models. Thus the chapter of Glasgow took that of Salisbury for
its guide. Dunkeld copied from the same type, venerable in its
associations with the name of St. Osmund, whose "Use of Sarum" obtained
generally throughout Scotland. Elgin or Moray sent to Lincoln for its
pattern, and transmitted it, with certain modifications, to Aberdeen and
to Caithness. So it was also with the monasteries. Canterbury was the
mother of Dunfermline; Durham, of Coldingham; St. Oswald's at Nosthill,
near Pontefract, was the parent of Scone, and through that house, of St.
Andrews and Holyrood. Melrose and Dundrennan were daughters of Rievaux,
in the North Riding. Dryburgh was the offspring of Alnwick; Paisley, of
Wenlock."[310]

Roman monasticism thus became an important factor in Scottish life, and
it is true to say that for a very considerable period the history both
of piety and civilisation in Scotland was the history of its
monasticism. It was a stage in the national development, a movement in
religious progress, and it was only abolished when the salt had lost its
savour, when monasticism had ceased to be spiritual and had become
worldly and corrupt. The system had served its day in helping to educate
the nation, and when its purpose was achieved it passed away.

Mediaeval architecture was, too, the outcome of the leisure in the
cloister, and the men who designed and built those venerable temples
must have been men to whom their work was their religion, and who
regarded it as the way of honouring God. One cannot look at their
architecture without realising how true are Ruskin's definitions of
Art:--"Art has for its business to praise God."[311] "Great Art is the
expression of a God-made great man."[312] "Art is the expression of
delight in God's work."[313] "All great art is praise." "Art is the
exponent of ethical life."[314] One cannot look at their ruins and not
recall that by their destruction a beauty has passed away from the
earth; one cannot read of the rude forces that destroyed them, and not
see that the judgment on things is always on character, and that the
last testing principle is, "See--not what manner of stones, _but what
manner of men_." While we deplore the forces that destroyed, we have
also to deplore the indefensible lives of the monks which at their last
stage stirred such forces to their depths.

There were four principal rules, under which might be classed all the
religious orders