Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/49

 hour and a half spent in the icy-cold chapel at midnight. From no point of view is there occasion for sympathy and admiration.

The Office which is thus chanted in choir is a collection of Latin psalms, hymns, and lessons from Scripture which every priest is bound to recite every day. The monks chant it, or rather ‘psalmody’ it, in a monotone in their chapel at various hours of the day: the principal section, ‘Matins and Lauds,’ are the opening ceremony in the morning. It lasts about an hour, and is followed by a half-hour of silent meditation—broken only by the slumbers of the somnolent and the elderly brethren. A facetious London priest, who once endeavoured to pass through the novitiate of a monastery, maintains that he was discharged because he snored so loudly during meditation as to disturb the slumbers of the elderly brethren. Mass followed, and then breakfast was taken in profound silence. It was a simple meal, consisting only of coffee (taken in bowls and without sugar except on fast-days) and bread and butter: during its progress a few pages of the ‘Imitation of Christ’ were read aloud. After breakfast a further section of the Office was chanted, and we were dismissed to arrange our rooms: for every friar, even the highest superior, is his own chamber-maid.

Afterwards we were allowed a quarter of an hour in the garden in strict silence, and then our semi-religious studies and classes commenced. During the