Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/62

56 are only understood in the light of such an education.

Thus the twelve months passed smoothly by, and the time approached for us to take the ‘simple vows.’ The votes of the community are taken every three months on the merits of candidates for the order. The community is assembled for the purpose in the chapter room (a room in which the superior assembles his religious three times per week for prayer, exhortation, and public confession of their minor faults—breaking utensils, oversleeping, &c.) and the superior invites a discussion on the merits or demerits of the novice. He then produces a bag of white and black marbles, of which he gives a pair to each voter: they are collected with great secrecy in two bags, and if the novice does not obtain a majority of ‘white balls’ he is significantly invited to abandon his intention. If it is probable that he will be ‘blackballed,’ he is usually warned in advance: hence it very rarely happens.

Our votes having been satisfactorily obtained we prepared to make our religious profession at the completion of our year of probation. The profession, an impressive religious ceremony, consists essentially of a vow to observe the rule of St. Francis and to ‘live in poverty, chastity, and obedience for the whole time