Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/199

 vn] THE MONASTIC CHARACTER 181 source and sanction, — God. The soul has nothing in and through itself, but all from God and in Him. He is its life, its joy, its love, its contemplation, as it waits expectant on His grace to do His will. And God so great, so infinite, so near, so guarding and caretaking, so closely loving, who suffered for every man and every woman — to such a God such a soul clings in the passion of devotion, begotten by God's love. It will dwell ever in the thought of Him, a happy pil- grim moving along the sweet, quiet, yearning ways of the Christian vita contemplativa. Yet this soul dwells also in the flesh, among fellow- sojourners. It is human, and its great relationship to God must be in part reflected and fulfilled in con- sistent relationships toward men. As the Christian spirit lived through its desert hermit life and re- gained its sanity and wholeness, this became clear to monasticism. The relationship of the soul to God was supreme; relationships toward men must never ignore their final end, the fulfilment of the relation- ship to God. To order and adjust them to this end was the problem ; its solution was the cloister, where the lives of all reflect the love of God in human rela- tionships. The monk shall love his brethren unto God, exercising obedience and humility, in the energy of love and patience. This is the key to monastic organ- ization and its rules. The love of God, the attain- ment of eternal life in Him, is the mouk's end and aim ; he cannot love his brethren or himself save in love ordered toward this end ; he must love himself, and them as himself, unto this end. Therefore it is his brother's spiritual welfare, as his own, that his