The object of the great gathering, in the summer of 1913, of Benedictine abbots in Rome, whither they had been especially summoned by the _Abbas Abbatum_, Pope Pius X., was not primarily devotional or liturgical, like the assemblage just held at Monte Cassino. It was first and foremost a business meeting, called for the purpose of electing a coadjutor (with right of succession) to the first Abbot Primate of the Order, Dom Hildebrand de Hemptinne, the distinguished Belgian prelate, who, after a life entirely devoted to the interests of the Church and of his brother-monks, had been compelled by impaired and enfeebled health to retire from all active work. One of his most notable achievements had been the planning and erection, at the instance and with the generous help of Leo XIII., of the noble monastic college on the Aventine, which that Pontiff declared would be the greatest material monument of his fifteen years' tenure of the see of Peter. It was pathetic that, although in residence at St. Anselm's College (his own beloved foundation) when we assembled there for the business in hand, Abbot de Hemptinne was quite unable to take any part in it, or even personally to welcome us to Rome. He appeared only once in public during our stay {247} there--a mere wreck of the active personality which had been so long associated with the interests and the progress of our Order in every part of Christendom. We at Fort Augustus owed much to his wisdom and sympathetic kindness; and I was touched to see, during the few minutes' conversation which I had with him, how his face lightened up, and something of the old alertness reawakened in his voice and bearing, as we spoke of new hopes and new developments in connection with our Scottish abbey.[1]