Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/188

182 very unexpected phenomena. Thus, a colleague of mine seemed to me in uncomfortable relations with a large number of friars, and of one of them he told me a strange story. He had entered his cell during the friar’s absence and found a revolver, which he abstracted and destroyed: he even added that he kept a secret lock on his own bed-room door at night, for the ordinary lock is open to a superior’s master-key, and the friar in question was a superior and a priest of high reputation.

Besides the triennial election, called a chapter, there is a half-chapter every eighteen months in which many changes take place. The friars do not, however, as a rule, appreciate the variety which is thus afforded them, for they soon find attachments in a mission which they are loth to break off. But quite apart from elections a friar is liable to be ordered off to a different monastery at any moment. It is related of the celebrated Duns Scotus that when he received the order to go from Paris to Cologne he happened to be away from the Paris monastery. He at once set off on foot for Cologne without returning even to bid goodbye to his brethren. The modern friar is not so precipitate. His ‘obedience,’ as the formal order to remove is called, allows three days to reach his destination; so that the friar has ample time to collect his luggage (for in spite of his vow of poverty every friar has a certain amount of personal property), and, perhaps, elicit a testimonial from his pious admirers.