were obedience and labor--the former became absorbed in the latter, for he speaks of that also as a species of labor--"Obedientiae laborem;" but the latter was the genius, the master-spirit of the whole code. There was to be labor, not only of contemplation, in the shape of prayer, worship, and self-discipline, to nurture the soul, but labor of action, vigorous, healthy, bodily labor, with the pen in the scriptorium, with the spade in the fields, with the hatchet in the forest, or with the trowel on the walls. Labor of some sort there must be daily, but no idleness: that was branded as "the {161} enemy of the soul"--"Otiositas inimica est animiae." It was enjoined with all the earnestness of one thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the great Master, who said, "Work whilst it is yet day, for the night cometh, when no man shall work;" who would not allow the man he had restored to come and remain with him--that is, to lead the life of religious contemplation, but told him to "go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee!" That is the life of religious activity. The error of the early monasticism was the making it solely a life of contemplation. Religious contemplation and religious activity must go together. In the contemplation the Christian acquires strength, in the activity he uses that strength for others; in the activity he is made to feel his weakness and driven to seek for aid in contemplation and prayer.