Basil, which includes all the monks and nuns of the East; nor of the rule of St. Benedict, comprising the greater part of the western monasteries; nor of that of St. Francis, practised by the mendicant orders; but we shall blend all the religious in one general picture, in which we shall attempt to delineate their customs, their manners, their way of life, whether active or contemplative, and the numberless services which they have rendered to society.

We cannot, however, forbear to make one remark. There are persons who, either from ignorance or prejudice, despise these constitutions under which such a number of cenobites have lived for so many centuries. This contempt is any thing but philosophical, especially at a time when people pique themselves on the study and the knowledge of mankind. A religious who, by means of a hair-shirt and a wallet, has assembled under his rule several thousands of disciples, is not an ordinary man; the springs which he has employed for this purpose, and the spirit which prevails in his institutions, are well worthy of examination.

It is well worthy of remark that, of all the monastic rules, the most rigid have been most scrupulously observed. The Carthusians have exhibited to the world the matchless example of a congregation which has subsisted seven hundred years without needing reform. This proves that the more the legislator combats the propensities of nature the more he insures the duration of his work. Those, on the contrary, who pretend to erect societies by employing the passions as materials for the edifice, resemble architects who build palaces with that kind of stone which crumbles away upon exposure to the air.

The religious orders have been in many points of view, nothing but philosophic sects, very nearly resembling those of the Greeks. The monks in the early ages were called philosophers, wore their dress and imitated their manners. Some of them even chose

the manual of Epictetus for their only rule. St. Basil first introduced the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. This law is profound; and upon reflection we shall find that the spirit of Lycurgus is comprised in these three precepts.

In the order of St. Benedict every thing is prescribed, even to the minutest details of life: bed, food, walks, conversation, prayers. To the weak were assigned the more delicate employ

ments; to the strong, such as were more laborious: in short, most of these religious laws display an astonishing knowledge of the art of governing men. Plato did no more than dream of republics, without being able to carry his plans into execution. The Augustins, the Basils, the Benedicts, were real legislators and the patriarchs of several great nations.

Much has been said, in modern times, in condemnation of perpetual vows; but it is not impossible, perhaps, to support them with reasons drawn from the very nature of things and from the real wants of our soul.

The unhappiness of man proceeds chiefly from his inconstancy, and from the abuse of that free-will which is at once his glory and his misfortune, and will be the occasion of his condemnation. His thoughts and his feelings are ever changing. His loves are not more stable than his opinions, and his opinions are as inconstant as his loves. From this disquietude there springs a wretchedness which cannot be removed until some superior power fix his mind upon one only object. He then bears the yoke with cheerfulness; for, though a man may be an infidel, his infidelity nevertheless is hateful to him. Thus, for instance, we see the mechanic more happy than the rich man who is idle, because he is engrossed with a work which effectually shuts out all foreign desires and temptations to inconstancy. The same subjection to power forms the contentment of children; and the law which prohibits divorce is attended with much less inconvenience for the peace of families than the law which permits it.

The legislators of antiquity understood the necessity of imposing a yoke upon man. In fact, the republics of Lycurgus and Minos were nothing more than communities in which men were bound from their very birth by perpetual vows. The citizen was condemned to a uniform or monotonous existence, and subjected to the most troublesome regulations, which extended even to his meals and recreations. He could neither dispose of his

time during the day, nor of the different periods of his life. A rigid sacrifice of his inclinations was demanded of him; he had to love, to think, and to act, according to the law. In a word, to render him happy he was deprived of his own will.

The perpetual vow, therefore, that is, submission to an in

violable rule, far from producing discontentment or misery, on the contrary is conducive to the happiness of man, especially when the only object of the vow is to protect him against the illusions of the world, as is the case in monastic institutions. The uprising of the passions seldom takes place before the age of twenty, and at that of forty they are commonly extinguished or disabused; and thus an indissoluble obligation deprives us at most of a few years of freedom, while it secures to us a peaceful life and banishes regret and remorse the remainder of our days. If we contrast the evils which spring from our passions with the little enjoyment which they procure, we shall perceive that the perpetual vow is something desirable even during the gay season of youth.

We ask, moreover, whether a nun would be happy if there were no moral restraint to prevent her from leaving the cloister at discretion? After a few years of retirement she would behold society altogether changed; for, on the theatre of life, when we cease for a moment to gaze upon the scene, the decorations change and pleasure vanishes; and, on looking back again, we see only places that have been deserted and actors that are unknown to us. A convent would be a very useless institution if it were a house where the folly of the world could enter and go out at the whim of the moment. The agitated heart would not commune long enough with the heart that is at peace, to acquire something of its blessed repose, and the soul that is calm. and cheerful would soon lose its joyful tranquillity amid the troubled spirits of the world. Instead of burying in silence the past evils of life, for which the cloister presents so efficient a remedy, the religious would be entertaining each other with their spiritual maladies, and perhaps mutually creating a disposition. to brave again the dangers which they had fled. A woman of the world and a woman of solitude, the unfaithful spouse of Christ would be fit neither for solitude nor for the world. The ebb and flow of the passions-those vows alternately broken and renewed-would banish from convents the peace, subordination, and propriety, which should reign in them; and those sacred retreats, far from putting an end to our disquietudes, would be nothing more than places where we would deplore for a moment the inconstancy of others and plan some new inconstancy for ourselves

But what renders the perpetual vow of religion far superior to that kind of political vow which existed among the people of Sparta and Crete, is its coming from ourselves, its not being imposed by others. Moreover, this vow offers to the heart a compensation for the terrestrial love which it sacrifices. In this alliance of an immortal soul with the eternal principle we see nothing but true greatness. Here are two natures adapted to each other and coming together. What a sublime spectacle! Man, born free, seeks happiness in vain by pursuing his own will; then, wearied out, and convinced that there is nothing here below worthy of his regard, he swears to make God the eternal object of his love, and, as is the case with the Divine Being, he creates for himself by his own act a necessity to do so.

CHAPTER V.

MANNERS AND LIFE OF THE RELIGIOUS.

Coptic Monks, Maronites, &c.

LET us now proceed to a delineation of the religious life, and, in the first place, lay down this principle:-wherever we find a great deal of mystery, solitude, silence, and contemplation, many allusions to the Deity, many venerable things in manners, customs, and apparel, there must necessarily be abundance of beauties of every kind. If this observation be correct, we shall presently see how admirably it applies to the subject before us.

Let us return once more to the hermits of Thebais. They dwelt in narrow cells, and wore, like Paul their founder, robes made of the leaves of palm-trees; others were habited in cloth woven of the hair of the antelope; some, like Zeno, merely threw the skins of wild beasts over their shoulders; while Seraphion the anchoret appeared wrapped in the shroud which was to cover him in the grave. The Maronite monks in the solitudes of Lebanon, the Nestorian hermits scattered along the Tigris, those of Abyssinia, near the cataracts of the Nile and on the

coasts of the Red Sea, all lead a life as extraordinary as the deserts in which they have buried themselves. The Coptic monk, on entering his monastery, renounces every pleasure, and spends all his time in labor, fasting, prayer, and the practice of hospitality. He lies on the ground; and scarcely has he slumbered a few moments when he rises, and, beneath the serene firmament of Egypt, raises his voice amid the silence of night, on the ruins of Thebes and Memphis. Sometimes the echo of the pyramids repeats to the shades of the Pharaos the hymns of this member of the mystic family of Joseph; at others the pious recluse celebrates in his matin devotion the true Sun of glory on the very spot where harmonious statues greeted the visible sun of day.1 There, too, he seeks the European bewildered among those renowned ruins; there, rescuing him from the hands of a horde of Arabs, he conducts him to his lofty tower, and amply supplies this stranger with refreshments which he denies himself. Scholars go, it is true, to visit the ruins of Egypt; but how happens it that, unlike those Christian monks, the objects of their scorn, they repair not thither to fix their abode in those oceans of sand, to endure all sorts of privations, that they may give a glass of water to the fainting traveller and snatch him from the scimetar of the Bedouin?

God of Christians! what marvellous things hast thou done! Which way soever we turn our eyes, we perceive nothing but monuments of thy bounty. Throughout the four quarters of the globe Religion has distributed her soldiers and stationed her sentinels of humanity. The Maronite monk, by the clattering of two boards hung to the top of a tree, calls the stranger who is benighted among the precipices of Lebanon; this poor ignorant artist possesses no more costly means of informing you where he is. The Abyssinian hermit awaits you in yon wood among prowling tigers; and the American missionary watches for your preservation in his boundless forests. Cast by tempests upon an unknown coast, you all at once perceive a cross erected on a rock. Unfortunate are you if this emblem of salvation does not make

The statue of Memnon was said to utter a melodious sound. This sound was supposed to be caused by the reverberation of the rays of the sun. The geographer Strabo attests the fact. The ruins of this statue are still con

siderable. S.