intense delight in the services of the sanctuary, to say nothing of their entire belief in the spiritual advantages to be derived from taking part in those services. Add to this that a monk had to pass through rather a long training before he was regularly admitted to full membership. He had to submit to a term of probation, during which he was subject to a somewhat rigorous ordeal. A novice had the pride taken out of him in a very effectual way during his novitiate--he was pretty much in the position of a _fag_ at a great school nowadays, and by the time that he had passed through his novitiate he was usually very well broken in, and in harmony with the spirit of the place in which he found himself. It was something to have a higher place assigned him at last in the church and the dormitory, to have some petty office given him, and to have a chance of being promoted by and by. There was Brother So-and-so, who was getting infirm, and he could not do the pitanciar's work much longer; the precentor was getting as hoarse as a raven, and the sacrist was gouty, or the cellarer was showing signs of breaking up. Nay, the prior's cough gave unmistakable signs of his lungs being wrong, and if he _were_ to drop off, which we should of course all of us deplore--there would be a general move up, it might be; unless, indeed, Father Abbot should promote his chaplain over the heads of all of us--for such things have been! But, when we come to look a little closer, we find that the monotony of monastic life was almost confined to the frequent services in the church. There were six services every day, of one kind or another, at which the whole convent was supposed to be present, and one service at midnight. [Footnote: Peckham's Register, ii, Preface, p. lxviii, et seq.] The lay brethren among the Cistercians, and the servants engaged in field labour, were excused attendance at the nocturnal service, and those officials of the convent whose business required them to be absent from the precincts were also excused. Indeed, it would have been simply impossible for the whole brotherhood to assemble at all these services; there would have been a dead-lock in twenty-four hours if the attempt had ever been made in any of the large monasteries, where the inmates sometimes counted by hundreds, who all expected their meals punctually, and for whom even the simplest cookery necessitated that fires should be kept up, the porridge boiled, the beer drawn, and the bread baked. Hence, they whose hands were full and their engagements many really had no time to put in an appearance at church seven times in twenty-four hours. While, on the other hand, the monk out of office, with nothing particular to do, was all the better for having his time broken up; going to church kept him out of mischief, and singing of psalms saved him from idle talk, and if it did him no good certainly did him very little harm.