Page:Discipline in school and cloister (1902).djvu/22

 laugh, who rail, who calumniate—at least, if they do not correct themselves after having been warned several times. The same treatment must be meted out to those who are lewd, impudent, and haughty; to those who are liars, thieves, and blackguards; to those who are wild and stubborn, and who boldly sustain their faults. (Rule of Saint Fructueux).

Neither young brothers under fifteen nor nuns who have commited a theft are excused a flogging; nor are the nuns who have struck their sisters, or are guilty of certain crimes. And so we come to learn how common were acts of indecency in these communities where only the divine spirit should have entered.

Licentious conversations with a person of the same or the opposite sex, as also the more intimate relations, are taken account of by monastic regulations.

The crime of frequenting women was punished with repeated fustigations. Those who persisted in casting lascivious glances on women might, after having been flogged, be expelled from the community, for fear their bad example might contaminate their brethren. One rule assimilates the monk