this body, that having received a bunch of grapes, he sent it to another, who tasting one, passed it to another; he being like abstemious, sent it again forward to another, until, having gone the circuit, it reached Macarius again unfinished. Basil the Great first founded a permanent monastic establishment to convert people from the error of Arianism; and Benedict, a native of Mursia in Umbria, A.D. 529, first established a regular order among the scattered convents, by uniting them under a fixed circle of laws, seclusion for life being the primary one. These societies also were made useful by him, in having allotted to them various occupations, such as the education of the young, copying and preserving manuscripts, recording the history of their own times in their chronicles, and also in the manual labour of cultivating waste lands. At first the monks had been reckoned among the laity, the convents forming separate churches, of which the abbot was usually presbyter, standing in the same relation to the bishop as in other churches; but monastic life gradually came to be considered the preparation for the clerical office, especially that of bishop. This led to the adoption of monastic discipline among the clergy; and the law of celibacy which had been rejected at the council of Nice, was then prescribed by Siricius, bishop of Rome. The convents were the representatives of the Christian aristocracy or monarchy, the mendicant orders, were the clergy of the poor. And each in their sphere exercised a great civilizing influence on the people; the latter especially, because the former, by their studies and literary labours, were more occupied in preparing the revival of letters, and the diffusion of knowledge in their own circle. Under the auspices of the church, systems of Christian charity were established, schools for children, hospitals and homes of refuge, were multiplied; all this was beneficial, it was the warmth of Christian light shining in dark places, although deep and painful wounds existed, whose fatal consequences soon became manifest. Such was the state of the church when St. Augustine laid claim to the supremacy of this country, towards the end of the sixth century.