Some apology, however, may be made in favour of the action of the Roman Consul. As himself observed upon the spot, the whole business of war would be at an end, if those whose duty it is to obey, were permitted to canvass the orders which they receive, and to set aside what part they please: besides that an allowance should be made for Men of a military life, and who are invested with military command; and some little indulgence, I think, ought to be shewn them, when they happen to inflict flagellations somewhat cavalierly. But as to the above holy Prior, who had made so many vows of obedience, humility, forbearance, and the like, it is not, indeed, quite so easy a talk to excuse him: I shall not, therefore, undertake it; and I will content myself with observing, how advantageous it would have been both for the above Engineer and Carpenters, in the perplexing situations in which they were respectively placed, to have possessed a power of the same kind as that which the Golden Legend (or perhaps some other Book of equal merit) supposes Jesus Christ to have exerted on a similar occasion. Joseph, as it is related, who had the care of the infant Jesus trusted to him, tried to bring him up to his own trade of a Carpenter; and one day, finding that the Boy had sawed a piece of wood shorter than the measure he had prescribed, he ran up to him, full of anger, with a stick raised in his hand, in order to chastise him; but the arch apprentice, who was beginning to be conscious of his power of working miracles, on a sudden exerted it, and lengthened the piece of wood to its proper size. [62] ... _Nec mora, vestes exuit Electus, & Decani validissimam disciplinam accepit: quâ acceptâ, vestibus reindutus, Decano cum maximâ oris gratiâ coram omnibus dixit; gratias ago Deo, & Patronæ Remensis Ecclesiæ ejus piissimæ genitrici, quod te talem in regimine relinquo._ Lib. II. Cap. XXXIX. Num. 20. [63] The arbitrary power of inflicting flagellations, possessed by Abbots, ought, one should think, to insure them in a high degree the veneration of their Monks; yet, from the manner in which St. Romuald is above said to have been used by those under his government, we may conclude the case is otherwise. A farther proof of the great freedom with which Monks use their Abbots, is to be derived from what Mons. Richelet says, in his well-known Dictionary of the French language, that Monks never trouble their heads about waiting for their Abbot, when he comes too late to dinner. Mons. Richelet informs us of this fact under the word _Abbé_, when he explains the origin of the French common saying, _on l’attend comme les Moines font l’Abbé_ (they wait for him, as Monks do for their Abbot), which is said jocularly of a person who is not at all waited for: this saying is derived, the above Gentleman observes, from the remarkable expedition with which Monks sit down to their dinner, as soon as the bell strikes, without caring whether the Abbot is come or not.