With regard to some of the beneficial, as well as some of the evil effects of the monastic institute, it is to be observed that they arose from innovations made upon the original system. If any contend that the profligacy of monks arose from the corruption of monastic discipline, and is not to be charged upon the system, as it proceeded from its founder, they must also admit that the literature of the monks, and whatever they accomplished as architects, and artists, and men of taste, equally arose in a departure from the strict rules of monastic order, and cannot, therefore, be regarded as fruits of the original institute. That an attention to literature, in its secular branches, and the cultivation of art, in its highest forms, was not provided for in the letter, nay, was out of harmony with the spirit of the rules of St. Benedict, must be apparent to every one who looks at that code of discipline; and, moreover, that these things were blamed by monastic reformers in the middle ages, and by those who, in the spirit of monachism, aspired to ascetic perfection, is evident from a glance at their history and writings. We have said nothing respecting nunneries. "Their rules were formed, for the most part, upon those which bound the monks. Like the monks, they lived from common funds, and used a common dormitory, table, and wardrobe; the same religious services exercised their piety; and habitual temperance and occasional fasting were enjoined with the same severity. Manual labour was no less rigidly enforced; but instead of the agricultural toils imposed upon their 'brethren,' to them were committed the easier tasks of the needle, or the distaff. By duties so numerous, by occupations admitting so great variety, they beguiled the tediousness of the day and the dulness of monastic seclusion."[1] The sister of St. Benedict is said to have been the founder of the Benedictine order of nuns, who soon became so numerous, that, in the city of Rome, under the pontificate of Gregory the Great, there were no less than three thousand of these "_ancillœ Dei_," "hand-maids of God." In the ninth century, they had risen to such an elevation of rank and power, that it became necessary to repress the pretended right of the abbesses to consecrate and ordain, and perform other sacerdotal functions.[2] "The establishment of female recluses followed very closely the numerous diversities of the monastic scheme, and imitated the names of the male institutions, where they could not adopt their practice, or even their profession. An order of Canonesses Regular was founded, or, at least, presented with a rule, by the council of Aix la Chapelle, in A.D. 813. And we read, in later times, of a community of noble young ladies, who were associated under a very easy discipline, and unrestrained by any vow of celibacy, under the title of Canonesses Secular. But these last pretenders to religious seclusion were, on more than one occasion, discountenanced by the