St. Egwin was far less a benefactor to his fellow-men than St. Benedict Biscop, a noble knight of the court of Oswi, the pious king of the Northumbrians. When Benedict, or Bennet, as he is familiarly called, retired from the profession of arms to follow that of the Church, he continued quite as active, and twice as useful, as he had been before. He was a great traveller, spent and gave liberally, and brought over with him, from the continent, workers in stone to erect that monastery at Weremouth which, in its ruins, commemorates his name and deeds. He also brought from France the first glaziers who ever exercised the art of glass-making in England. Altogether St. Bennet is one of those who find means to effect good to others, whatever may be the position they are in themselves. Aelred of Ridal was a man of similar quality. He was a young North-of-England noble, when he figured as the handsomest cavalier at the court of that “sair saint to the Church,” the Scottish king, David. He was remarkable for his good temper, and was as well-disciplined a monk as he had been a military man; for when he once happened to inadvertently break the rule of permanent silence, which prevailed in the monastery at Ridal, into which he entered at the age of twenty-five, he became so horror-stricken that he was eager to increase the penalty put upon him in consequence. He had only dropped a single word in the garden, to a monk who, like himself, had been a knight, but who gave him in return so edifying a scowl, that in an instant poor Aelred felt all the depth of his unutterable iniquity, and accounted himself as criminal as if he had set fire to the neighboring nunnery. He never afterward allowed himself the indulgence of reading his favorite Cicero, but confined his reading to his own work “On Spiritual Friendship,” and other books of a similar description. The great St. Hilary was another of the men of noble family following arms as a vocation, who gave up the profession for that of the Church, and prospered remarkably in consequence. St. Felix of Nola affords us an additional illustration of this fact. This noble young soldier found no happiness in the business of slaughtering, and all the sophistry in the world could not persuade him that it was honorable. “It is a disgusting business,” said the Saint, “and as I can not be Felix [happy] in performing it, I will see if I can not be Felix in the Church;” and the punning saint found what he sought.