Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/153

 It soon became apparent, however, that perfection, in their opinion, consisted very largely in a purely mechanical and lifeless discipline. Much stress was laid upon their exact observance of the letter of the constitutions, which we English friars conspicuously neglected. In most of the monasteries they arose at midnight for office, observed all the fasts diligently, would not touch a sou with a shovel, never laid aside their religious habit, and never interfered in secular business. They felt themselves, therefore, in a sufficiently high position to look down compassionately on our English province, and they were sincerely astonished when the late General of the Order, the shrewd and eminent F. Bernardine, quite failed to appreciate their excellent condition, on the occasion of a visit from Rome. In point of fact the province is infected with the idle, intriguing, and materialistic spirit which monasticism invariably develops when it is not under the constant pressure and supervision of heretics and unbelievers.

Their literal fulfilment of the vow of poverty in these unsympathetic times leads to curious complications. In the primitive innocence of the order (its first twenty years) the vow of poverty implied that all the houses, clothing, &c., that the friars used, remained the property of the donors; that money was on no account to be received for their labours; that all food was to be begged. In the course of time the paternal solicitude of the Pope helped them out of