When peace was restored to the church, and the age of doctors commenced, succeeding the age of martyrs, who were more celebrated for the gravity of their minds and the extent of their knowledge than the Paulas, the Marcellas, Melanias, and Eustochiums, with many other saints and noble Christian women? Remember St. Marcella, in whom St. Jerome found so powerful an auxiliary against heresy; and St. Paula, who inspired St. Jerome to undertake his noblest and most important works, the Latin translation of the Bible from the Hebrew text, and a complete series of commentaries upon the prophets. Nothing is finer than St. Paula's letter to St. Marcella. There we see all that Marcella had done to elevate the souls and the intelligence of women and maidens who called her their mother; there we comprehend the intelligence and the eloquence of St. Paula. [Footnote 2] [Footnote 2: We read with great interest in _The History of St. Paula_, just published by M. l'Abbé F. Lagrange, those chapters devoted to the studies in Holy Scripture of Roman ladies in St. Jerome's school, and to those of St. Paula made at Bethlehem, under the direction of the same saint.] Who does not know what Theresa was in the following century to St. Paulinus, whose reputation is as much the glory of Aquitaine as the name of Ausonius? Who does not know that Elpicia (the wife of Boëthius) composed hymns adopted by the Roman liturgy? In the midst of barbarism education was one of the first conditions imposed on Christian virgins. Those who evinced an aptitude for literary pursuits were dispensed from manual labor, according to the precept of St. Cesarius, that they might devote themselves exclusively to intellectual work. In most monasteries we hear of them engrossed in study, writing, translating, copying, or deciphering without interruption. St. Radegonde, not content with attracting to Poitiers one of the last Roman poets, induced him to give so complete a training to her nuns as to form among them writers who soon eclipsed their master. Classic elegance and purity are revived in the writings of Bandonovia. All the charm of Christian inspiration is revealed in the hymn improvised by a nun of Poitiers at the moment of Radegonde's death, and one of the earliest flowers of the new poetic era blooms over the grave of this holy queen who so loved letters. The monasteries of England, Ireland, and France were nurseries for erudite and devout women.