there is an ankress, the grating of a cell has been known to become a place of resort; it is said that scandals and mischievous gossip were sometimes first started outside the ankress’ cell; all the women went there to talk of what was going on in the parish; the cell became a nuisance; the parish priest spoke about it; the Bishop heard of it. Think of the effect upon the imagination produced outside by the mere voice of the unseen solitary who, as long as he lived, would never change his clothes, nor wash himself, nor cut his hair or beard, nor look upon the face of other men, nor see the sunshine and the blue sky, nor look for any physical comfort or solace so long as life should endure. They knew he was there; they came and spoke to him; the hollow voice came out of the grave in reply; they lowered food; one day they came and heard no voice in reply; they removed the stones and looked in. God had summoned the man of long endurance; who would take his place? I said, above, that for a hundred years there were anchorites attached to most churches. My reason for assigning this period is that the London citizens began to bequeath property to anchorites in the middle of the fourteenth century, in the year 1341, and left off the practice at the same time as they left off bequeathing property to the Friars about the year 1400. For sixty years there was a general formula with all those who had property to leave. They bequeathed small sums to their own parish church, to all the five orders of friars, to every anchorite in London, or to every anchorite, man or woman, in and about the City of London, to every hermit in London, to every leper in London, to every poor prisoner in London. The reason why the fashion of giving bequests to the maintenance of solitaries began so late and ended so quickly was, I suppose, that the practice of building anchorites’ cells became more common in the fourteenth century than it had been in former times; that men clutched at every chance of getting prayers as well as masses for their souls; that the appearance of so many newly built cells struck their imagination; that they thought the prayers of a holy anchorite must be of great efficacy inasmuch as the man not only led a saintly life but endured continual sufferings. In the same way they left money to lepers and to prisoners in order to obtain their prayers.