Let us now look again at the monks. Their way of life was at first devised as a means of either practising repentance for sin, or rising to such a height of holiness as was supposed to be beyond the reach of persons busied in the affairs of this world. But in course of time a change took place. As the life of monks grew more common, it grew less strict; indeed, it would seem that whenever any way of life which professes to be very strict becomes common, its strictness will pretty surely be lessened, or given up altogether. People at first turned monks because they felt that such means of holy living as they had been used to did not make them so good as they ought to be, and because they hoped to do better in this new kind of life. But when the monkish life was no longer new, monks neglected its rules, just as those before them had neglected the rules which holy Scripture and the Church had laid down for all Christians. In the unhappy days which had now come on, the monasteries of the west had in great measure escaped the evils of war and conquest which laid waste everything around them. The barbarians, who overwhelmed the empire, generally respected them; and now the life of monks, instead of being chosen for its hardships, as it had been at first, came to be regarded as the easiest and the safest life of all. It was sought after as one which would free people from the dangers to which they would be liable if they remained in the world, and took the common share in the world's risks and troubles. Another important matter was this--that monkery had taken its rise in Egypt and in Syria, where the climate and the habits of the people were very different from those of the western countries. And a great part of the monkish rules were fitted only for the particular circumstances and character of the eastern nations;--for instance, they could do with less food than the people of the west, so that a writer of the fifth century said, "A large appetite is gluttony in the Greeks, but in the Gauls it is nature." Again, the Egyptians and the Syrians, in their hot climate, did not need active employment in the same way as the western nations do, in order to keep their minds and their bodies healthful. They could spend their hours and their days in calmly thinking of spiritual things, or of nothing at all, in a way which the more active mind of Europeans cannot bear. And again, many rules as to dress, which are suitable for one sort of climate, are quite unfit for a different sort.