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166 opposition manifested by the monasteries to the reforms of Peter the Great aroused his anger, and arrayed all the power of the State against them. Every restriction, short of absolute suppression, was imposed; their property was sequestered, and their spiritual influence undermined by government interference, until the lower classes only held them in reverence; their number, and that of their inmates, was arbitrarily reduced; they were treated as institutions of the State, and in the choice of their superiors, as well as in all the detail of their administration, they were subjected to government control, exercised through the Synod; entrance to the monastic body was made difficult by stringent regulations, and the life made irksome by severe and vexatious discipline, calculated to repel and disgust the better class of those who felt a vocation for religious seclusion. By a singular contradiction, all high ecclesiastical dignities were reserved for the members of the monastic body, thus systematically degraded in general estimation. The effect of this policy, so fraught with danger to the standing and repute of the upper clergy, was counteracted by the practice of conferring these positions of responsibility only upon the elect, whose career in the seminaries and academies had been marked by ability. To graduates of brilliant promise every conceivable inducement to take the vows was offered; the limit of age was reduced from thirty years to twenty-five, and rapid promotion was assured. A superior class among the monks was thus formed, for whom monastic life was but a means for an end, an easy and certain path to power and influence; while for the great majority it was a dreary, monotonous routine of ceremonial religious rites, under rigid discipline strictly enforced.

A few only of the monasteries, and those are of mi-