How deeply the ascetic tendency is implanted in human nature is strikingly shown in the case of the Essenes, the Nazarites, and the Therapeutæ, who sprang from a religion whose ostensible precepts are eminently opposed to all such courses, that of the Jews. Judaism powerfully encouraged all those inclinations to which monasticism is fatal: the propagation of the species, the acquisition of property, the maintenance of family ties, and the enjoyment of the good things which this world has to offer. Yet from the bosom of this sober faith sprang bodies of men who neither ate flesh, nor drank wine, nor cohabited with women. It may be that the Jewish ascetics were not very numerous; but it is clear, too, that they were not so few as to be deemed by contemporary observers altogether unimportant. And the fascination which John the Baptist, pre-eminently an ascetic, exercised over his countrymen in the first century, is a sign that this mode of living was conducive among the Jews to that spiritual supremacy which is so constantly received at the hands of Christians. That Christianity should encourage a disposition which even Judaism could not check was no more than might be expected from the language and conduct of its founder and his earliest disciples. Christ was never married, and probably lived in complete chastity. Paul goes so far as to compare marriage unfavorably with celibacy. James upholds poverty as preferable to riches in the eyes of God. The whole of the New Testament abounds with passages in which present misery is declared to be the forerunner of future happiness, and present prosperity of future suffering. This is the very spirit of monasticism, and it is not surprising that from such a root such fruits have sprung. From a very early age devout Christians have felt that in renouncing individual property, marriage, personal freedom, and the various other joys which life in the world offers, they were fulfilling the dictates of their religion and preparing themselves for heaven. To illustrate this proposition effectually would be to write the history of the monastic orders. Beginning in the deserts of Egypt, these have extended throughout Europe, and have exercised a vast and potent influence on the extension of the Christian faith. Monks have been missionaries, preachers, martyrs, persecutors, bishops and popes. The greatest names who have ranged themselves under the banner of the Catholic Church have belonged to one or other of the several orders. And alongside of the monks, living by the same rule, helping them in their several tasks, the nuns have ever been forward in undergoing their share of austerity and undertaking their share of labor.