These proper allowances being made, there will be no difficulty in turning from an indignant reprobation of the monkish practices, to a charitable and consoling belief of the personal virtues, and even eminent piety of many who, in every age, have fretted away an unblessed existence within that dungeon of religious delusion—the monastery. In default of complete evidence, yet on the ground of some substantial proof, it is allowable to hope that the monastic orders at all times included many spiritual members.[12] There is even reason to believe that a better style of sentiment, and less extravagance, and less fanatical heat, and less knavish pretension, and more of humility and purity, existed here and there among the recluses of the tenth and eleventh, than among those of the fifth and sixth centuries. In the earlier period, though there might be much pretension to seclusion from the world, the monastery was in fact a house set on a hill in the midst of the Christian community; and it was ever surrounded by an admiring multitude; so that its inmates might always find a ready revenue of glorification for the exploits and hypocrisies of supernatural sanctity.[13] But in the later periods, and when nothing hardly existed without doors except feudal ignorance and ferocity (we speak of the monasteries of Europe), many of the religious houses were real seclusions, and very far removed from any market of vulgar praise. Then within these establishments, it cannot be doubted, that the pious few found their virtue much rather guarded by the envious eyes of their less exemplary comrades, than endangered by drawing upon itself any sort of admiration. The spiritual monk (let not modern prejudices refuse to admit the phrase), glad to hide himself from the railleries or spite of the lax fraternity, kept close to his cell, and there passed his hours, not uncheered, nor undelicious, in prayer and meditation, in the perusal of religious books, and in the pleasant, edifying, and beneficial toils of transcription. Not seldom, as is proved by abundant evidence, the life-giving words of prophets and apostles were the subjects of these labors; nor ought it to be doubted that while, through a long tract of centuries, the Scriptures, unknown abroad, were holding their course underground, if one might so speak, waiting the time of their glorious emerging, they imparted the substance of true knowledge to many souls, pent with them in the same sepulchral glooms. * * * * *