public solemn singing of offices was no more characteristic of his rule than was the following of the hermits in pure prayer. One who would be admitted to the monastery must take oath before the whole community that he intended constantly to remain firm in his profession, to live a life of conversion to God, and to obey those set over him, but the last only "according to the rule." True monks were his followers to count themselves only if they lived by the labours of their hands. Idleness, said Benedict, is the enemy of the soul. The life of the monks was ascetic, but without the extreme rigour of the earlier "religious"--hermits and coenobites. The rule required austerities, and gave strict injunction as to food at all times, and especially in Lent; but it did not encourage voluntary austerities beyond the rule, and it admitted many relaxations for the old, the infirm, or those whose labours were especially hard. Where all depended so much on a superior it was of especial importance that he should be wisely chosen and should rule wisely. In three things he was to be pre-eminent--exhortation, example, and prayer; and prayer, says the saint, is the greatest of these; for {37} although there be much virtue in exhortation and example, yet prayer is that which promotes grace and efficacy alike in deed and word. He was to recognise no difference of social rank. Good deeds and obedience were to be the only ways to his favour. Only if exceptional merit required promotion was there to be any breach of the proper order in which each should hold his place, "since, whether slaves or free, we are all one in Christ, and, under the same Lord, wear all of us the same badge of service." In a cell hard by the monastery dwelt Benedict's sister, S. Scholastica, whose religious life he directed, but whom he rarely saw, and who became a pattern to nuns as he to monks. [Sidenote: Its wide influence.] The influence of Benedict was, even in his own lifetime, extraordinary. There were times when it might almost be said that all Italy looked to him for guidance; and there is no more striking scene in the history of the decaying Gothic power than when the cruel Totila, whose end he foresaw, and the secrets of whose heart lay open to his gaze, visited him in his monastery and heard the words of truth from his lips. When, fortified by the Body and Blood of the Lord, he passed away with hands still uplifted in prayer, he had created a power which did more than any other to make the Church predominant in Italy. The rule, the definite organisations, of monasticism came to the world from Italy and from Benedict. Though the Benedictines were never actively papal agents, yet indirectly, by their training and by their influence on the whole nature of medieval religion, they formed a strong support for the growing power of the Roman see. {38}