In the eleventh century, a monk named Thieffroy wrote the following: "It matters little that our churches rise to heaven, that the capitals of their pillars are sculptured and gilded, that our parchment is tinted purple, that gold is melted to form the letters of our manuscripts, and that their bindings are set with precious stones, if we have little or no care for the members of Christ, and if Christ himself lies naked and dying before our doors." This spirit, so charmingly expressed, was never quite absent from the monkish orders. The monasteries were asylums for the hungry during famines, and the sick during plagues. They served as hotels where the traveler found a cordial welcome, comfortable shelter and plain food. If he needed medical aid, his wants were supplied. During the black plague, while many monks fled with the multitude, others stayed at their posts and were to be found daily in the homes of the stricken, ministering to their bodily and spiritual needs. Many of them perished in their heroic and self-sacrificing labors. Alms-giving was universally enjoined as a sure passport to heaven. The most glittering rewards were held out to those who enriched the monks with legacies to be used in relief of the poor. It was, no doubt, the unselfish activities of the monks that caused them to be held in such high esteem; the result was their coffers were filled with more gold than they could easily give away. Thus abuses grew up. Bernard said: "Piety gave birth to wealth, and the daughter devoured the mother." Jacob of Vitry complained that money, "by various and deceptive tricks," was exacted from the people by the monks, most of which adhered "to their unfaithful fingers." While Lecky eloquently praises the monks for their beautiful deeds of charity, "following all the windings of the poor man's grief," still he condones in the strongest terms the action of Henry VIII. in transferring the monastic funds to his own treasury: "No misapplication of this property by private persons could produce as much evil as an unrestrained monasticism." It would be unjust, however, to censure the monks for not recognizing the evil social effects of indiscriminate alms-giving. While their system was imperfect, it was the only one possible in an age when the social sciences were unknown. It is difficult, even to-day, to restrain that good-natured, but baneful, benevolence which takes no account of circumstances and consequences, and often fosters the growth of pauperism. The monks kept alive that sweet spirit of philanthropy which is so essential to all the higher forms of civilization. It is easier to discover the proper methods for the exercise of generous sentiments, than to create those feelings or to arouse them when dormant. _Monasticism and Religion_