the monk from the pursuits and pleasures of other men. In the later fifth century, and earlier sixth, several monasteries of whose history we know little were established in southern Gaul, especially in the pleasant valley of the Rhone. Earliest of all, apparently, and destined to become the most influential was the abbey of St. Martin at Tours, founded soon after St. Martin was made bishop of Tours in 372. But the development of Western monasticism is associated most of all with the work of St. Benedict of Nursia, who died in 543. Benedict was the founder of several monasteries in the vicinity of Rome, the most important being that of Monte Cassino, on the road from Rome to Naples, which exists to this day. One should guard, however, against the mistake of looking upon St. Benedict as the introducer of monasticism in the West, of even as the founder of a new monastic _order_ in the strict sense of the word. The great service which he rendered to European monasticism consisted in his working out for his monasteries in Italy an elaborate system of government which was found so successful in practice that, in the form of the Benedictine Rule (_regula_), it came to be the constitution under which for many centuries practically all the monks of Western countries lived. That it was so widely adopted was due mainly to its definite, practical, common-sense character. Its chief injunctions upon the monks were poverty, chastity, obedience, piety, and labor. All these were to be attained by methods which, although they may seem strange to us to-day, were at least natural and wholesome when judged by the ideas and standards prevailing in early mediaeval times. Granted the ascetic principle upon which the monastic system rested, the Rule of St. Benedict must be regarded as eminently moderate and sensible. It sprang from an acute perception of human nature and human needs no less than from a lofty ideal of religious perfection. The following extracts will serve to show its character. Source--Text in Jacques Paul Migne, _Patrologiae Cursus Completus_, First Series, Vol. LXVI., cols. 245-932 _passim_. Adapted from translation in Ernest F. Henderson, _Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages_ (London, 1896), pp. 274-314. _Prologue...._ We are about to found, therefore, a school for the Lord's service, in the organization of which we trust that we shall ordain nothing severe and nothing burdensome. But even if, the demands of justice dictating it, something a trifle irksome shall be the result, for the purpose of amending vices or preserving charity, thou shalt not therefore, struck by fear, flee the way of salvation, which cannot be entered upon except through a narrow entrance. [Sidenote: Responsibility of the abbot for the character and deeds of the monks] [Sidenote: He must teach by example as well as by precept]