This production, by Jerome, strikes us as being a type of the early system of monkery; a mass of superstition, illumined here and there by noble sentiments, while these very sentiments are themselves tinctured by fearful errors. The allusion to the naked soul being clothed in the robe of Christ is very beautiful, and accords with the apostle Paul's sentiment in his Epistle to the Philippians, where he exhibits the ground of his own personal hope--that ground on which every true Christian rests exclusively--"Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Resting there--building on that blessed foundation, "Jerome a sinner" would be safe; but instead of alluding to that as his only ground of hope, he speaks of "the merits" of his departed friend. That was the robe "better than the purple of kings" in which he would fain be wrapped. He seems to forget the Divine and perfect garment he had before mentioned, in his admiration and desire of the human, imperfect, and tattered robe of the poor hermit's righteousness. Such was the theology of the day, so ruinous to souls, either substituting the merit of man for the merit of the Redeemer, or endeavouring to unite them; such was the pestilential heresy that was ravaging the church; such was the principle which lay at the foundation of the monkish system; and such is the sentiment which, in the present day, as in former times, fastens on the minds of many, distracting their thoughts, bewildering their attention, and cheating them out of the safety and peace they would secure by a simple reliance on "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world;" for "neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Monks were a different class of ascetics. They were men not living in solitude, but associated together under certain laws, yet keeping aloof from the world, and practising great self-denial. Antony was the founder of monastic establishments in Egypt, whence they rapidly spread over every part of Christendom. Athanasius introduced them into the west, where, at first, they seem to have been unpopular; and Martin of Tours was the founder of them in Gaul. But these establishments were so agreeable to the spiritual pride of some, the indolence of others, and the misguided piety of many more, that they soon multiplied, and became crowded with inmates; so that no less than two thousand of the fraternity in Gaul followed to the grave the remains of their zealous patron the famous St. Martin.