A new apostle was clearly needed to aid the organizing spirit of Rome in her efforts to regulate the increasing number of devotees, who threatened to become the worst scandal of the church, and who could be rendered so efficient an instrument for its aggrandizement. He was found in the person of St. Benedict of Nursia, who, about the year 494, at the early age of sixteen, tore himself from the pleasures of the world, and buried his youth in the solitudes of the Latian Apennines. A nature that could wrench itself away from the allurements of a splendid career dawning amid the blandishments of Rome was not likely to shrink from the austerities which awe and attract the credulous and the devout. Tempted by the Evil Spirit in the guise of a beautiful maiden, and finding his resolution on the point of yielding, with a supreme effort Benedict cast off his simple garment and threw himself into a thicket of brambles and nettles, through which he rolled until his naked body was lacerated from head to foot. The experiment, though rude, was eminently successful; the flesh was effectually conquered, and Benedict was never again tormented by rebellious desires.[232] A light so shining was not created for obscurity. Zealous disciples assembled around him, attracted from distant regions by his sanctity, and after various vicissitudes he founded the monastery of Monte Casino, on which for a thousand years were lavished all that veneration and munificence could accumulate to render illustrious the birthplace and capital of the great Benedictine Order. The rule promulgated by Benedict, which virtually became the established law of Latin Monachism, shows the more practical character of the western mind. Though pervaded by the austerest asceticism, yet labor, charity, and good works occupy a much more prominent place in its injunctions than in the system of the East. Salvation was not to be sought simply by abstinence and mortification, and the innate selfishness of the monastic principle was relaxed in favor of a broader and more human view of the duties of man to his Creator and to his fellows. This gave to the institution a firmer hold on the affections of mankind and a more enduring vitality, which preserved its fortunes through the centuries, in spite of innumerable aberrations and frightful abuses.