Helyot, /Histoire des ordres monastiques religieux/, etc., 8 vols., 1714-19. Heimbucher, /Die Orden und Kongregationen der Katholischen Kirche/, 1907-8. Mabillon, /Annales Ordinis Sancti Benedicti/, 1703-39. Albers, /Zur Reformgeschichte des Benediktiner-ordens im 16 Jahrhundert/ (/Stud. u-Mitteil/, 1900, 1901). Daurignac, /Histoire de la comp. de Jesus/, 1862. Cretineau-Joly, /Histoire religieuse, politique et litteraire de la comp. de Jesus/, 1859. Huber, /Der Jesuitenorden Duhr, Jesuitenfabeln/, 1904. Abelly, /Vie de Ven. serviteur de Dieu, Vincent de Paul/, 1891. Bougaud-Brady, /History of St. Vincent de Paul, etc./, 1908. Boyle, /St. Vincent de Paul, and the Vincentians in Ireland, Scotland, and England/, 1909. The religious orders, like most other institutions of the age preceding the Reformation, stood badly in need of re-organisation and reform. Various causes had combined to bring about a relaxation of the discipline prescribed by their holy founders, and to introduce a spirit of worldliness, that boded ill both for the individual members as well as for the success of the work for which these orders had been established. The interference of outside authorities lay or ecclesiastical in the appointment of superiors, the union of several houses under one superior, the accumulation of wealth, the habitual neglect of the superiors to make their visitations, and a general carelessness in the selection and training of the candidates to be admitted into the various institutions, were productive of disastrous results. It is difficult, however, to arrive at a correct estimate as to the extent of the evil, because the condition of affairs varied very much in the different religious orders and in the different provinces and houses of the same order. At all times a large proportion of the religious of both sexes recognised and deplored the spirit of laxity that had crept in, and laboured strenuously for a return to the old ideals long before the Lutheran campaign had made it necessary to choose between reform and suppression.