“These old religious houses kept public registers of all great public transactions; and to them we are indebted for all our English historians down to the period of the Dissolution. They were possessed of all the learning that was in any repute at the time prior to the coming of the friars. The monasteries, in general, furnished the men who were fit for embassies abroad, or for offices of trust and distinction at home: and to their honour it is recorded, that all the inferior officers, both in the courts of law and in the civil departments of the Government, who are called clerks, owe this appellation to the religious houses, Abbeys or Cathedrals, from which the first officers were taken. The landed property belonging to these houses at the time of the Dissolution was so great, that it was computed at one-third of the kingdom. Yet, whatever were their temporal possessions, they were always found to be good landlords, ever ready to forward improvements, and accomplishing many great works in draining, enclosing, and planting, which could never have been undertaken by individuals.” “In truth,” adds the historian quoted, “they did more to civilize mankind, and to bring them within the comforts of society, than any set of men of any denomination have ever done. And yet the ungrateful world, that was enjoying the fruits of their labours and their riches, now that it beheld the edifice completed, cast down the builders and the scaffoldings as if no longer useful! In spite of all the calumny thrown out against these monastic institutions, nothing so well proclaims their utility as this--that they maintained themselves in credit and repute, some of them a thousand years; and many of them during the space of three hundred, four hundred, and five hundred years; and that, when they were dissolved, Edward the Sixth and his counsellors found it necessary to endow new hospitals, to build new schools, and to provide new relief for the poor and helpless.”