that it was only by passing them into more skilful and industrious hands, that they became actually appreciable, as corn lands, orchards, and vineyards. <g>The Canons</g> of Llanthony, in their local position, had neither the advantages of a fertile soil, nor the acquired habits, nor obligations of Rule, which rendered its cultivation imperative. Their revenues were drawn from a distance--some from remote parts in Ireland. But in their immediate neighbourhood, the monks had a brook and enclosed ponds that produced fish; forests that bred herds of deer, hares, and wild fowl; while patches of garden, orchard, and rye-field, supplied their table with that allowance of fruits and vegetables, herbs and roots, and coarse bread, which formed the daily items of their scanty fare. But when a stranger of note or a noble pilgrim arrived at the gate, the Prior’s table assumed the appearance of more than frugal hospitality; and all that forest or river could furnish for the entertainment of the honoured guest was liberally supplied.[345] As an established <g>Sanctuary</g>--from which even the greatest offenders were not excluded--we have already noticed the shame and desecration inflicted upon Llanthony by a powerful native, who in the hour of despair had fled to its gate for shelter. To this disastrous visit no opposition could be offered. The sanctuary of <g>St. John</g> was alike available to all--to the guilty as well as to the innocent. And if it was too frequently a refuge for those who had set all laws at defiance, it was happily still more so to the sick and the friendless; to the helpless victim of oppression, who from the horns of the altar appealed to heaven for redress; and to the penitent, who could find no escape from the snares of evil associates, but in the confessional and the cloister. It had been a difficult task, in such circumstances, to discriminate between the claims of those who, in their distress, flew to the sanctuary--between great criminals and true penitents; and therefore it was better the gate should be open alike to all, than that one sincere penitent should be driven back into a world which, in the bitter hours of remorse, he had resolved to abandon. In such institutions there was a gentle union of wisdom and mercy, which the refinement of later times has done much to loosen, and little to perpetuate. [Illustration: The Abbey Church from the East.] <g>Of Llanthony</g>, as it _now_ appears, the following sketch is from the pen of a recent visitor; and the contrast is picturesque and striking:--