Since the sixteenth century the leading governments of Europe, even including those in Catholic countries, have given tangible expression to popular and political antagonism to monasticism, by the abolition of convents, or the withdrawal of immunities and favors, for a long time a source of monastic revenue and power. The results of this hostility have been so disastrous, that monasticism has never regained its former prestige and influence. Several of the older orders have risen from the ruins, and a few new communities have appeared, some of which are distinguished by their most laudable ministrations to the poor and the sick, or by their educational services. Yet notwithstanding the modifications of the system to suit the exigencies of modern times, it seems altogether improbable that the monks will ever again wield the power they possessed before the Reformation, In the present chapter attention will be confined to the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII., in England. The suppression in that country was occasioned partly by peculiar, local conditions, and was more radical and permanent than the reforms in other lands, yet it is entirely consistent with our general purpose to restrict this narrative to English history. Penetrating beneath the varying externalities attending the ruin of the monasteries in Germany, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, and other countries, it will be found that the underlying cause of the destruction of the monasteries was that the monastic ideal conflicted with the spirit of the modern era. A conspicuous and dramatic example of this struggle between medievalism, as embodied in the monastic institution, and modern political, social and religious ideals, is to be found in the dissolution of the English monasteries. The narrative of the suppression in England also conveys some idea of the struggle that was carried on throughout Europe, with varying intensity and results.