In the utter solitude of the desert, or in the mitigated seclusion of the monastery, a large proportion probably, of the recluses, soon drooped into the inanity of trivial pietism: a few, perhaps, after the first excitement failed, bit their chain, from day to day, to the end of life: or wrung a wretched solace from concealed vices. But those who, by vigor of mind, supported better the preying of the soul upon itself, could do no otherwise than exchange the simple and affectionate piety with which, perhaps they entered the wilderness, for some form of visionary religion.[5] To maintain, unbent, the rectitude of sound reason, and unsullied, the propriety of sound feelings, in solitude, is an achievement, which, it may confidently be affirmed, surpasses the powers of human nature. Good sense, never the product of a single mind, is the fruit of intercourse and collision. * * * * * When the several circumstances above mentioned are duly considered, they will remove from candid minds almost every sensation of asperity or of contemptuous reprobation, towards those who, in their day of defective knowledge, became the victims, or even the zealous supporters of the prevalent enthusiasm. We have done, then, with the parties in these scenes of delusion and folly; or at least with those of them who were sincere in their error. But when we turn to the system itself, and gain that license which charity herself may grant, while an abstraction only is under contemplation, we must remember that this monkery, so innocent in its commencement, and so plausible in its progress, was the chief means of destroying the spiritual reality of Christianity, and ought to be deemed the principle cause of that gross darkness which hung over the church during more than a thousand years. [4] This conjecture, hazarded in 1829, would seem now to be not unlikely to be, to some extent, realized. [5] The errors and extravagances generated by the monastic life did not ordinarily extend to the fundamental principles of Christianity. The monks were, for the most part, zealously attached to the doctrine of the Nicene creed; and the church owes to many of them its thanks for the constancy with which they suffered in its defence. SECTION IX. THE SAME SUBJECT.—INGREDIENTS OF THE ANCIENT MONACHISM. Among the principal elements of the ancient Monachism, it is natural to name, first— Its contempt of the divine constitution of human nature, and the outrage it offered to the most salutary instincts.