This was the origin essentially of many of the monasteries of Europe: they were noble institutions in their design, and thousands of Christians breathing the spirit of Christ found within their enclosures peaceful and useful lives when the billows of anarchy were surging over nearly all other portions of the globe. But that innate proneness to wickedness, which seems everywhere to reign, gradually perverted those once holy and industrious communities into institutions of indolence and sin. Wherever the monastery arose, there originally waved around it fields of grain, and fat cattle grazed in the meadows. Prayer and labor, faith and works, were combined, as they ever should be. The ruins of these monastic edifices still occupy the most enchanting spots in Europe: they were usually reared upon some eminence which commanded an extensive prospect; or in some sheltered nook, by the banks of a beautiful stream. The eye of taste is invariably charmed in visiting these localities. The pristine monks were a noble set of men; and, for ages, learning and piety were sheltered in the cloisters which their diligent hands had reared. The modern tourist, witnessing the worldly wisdom evidenced in their whole plan, and conscious that there is no longer occasion for such institutions, forgets the necessities of the rude days in which they were constructed, and is too apt sneeringly to exclaim,―― “Ah! those shrewd old monks had a keen eye to creature-comforts. They loved the banks of the well-filled stream sparkling with salmon and trout: they sought out luxuriant meadows, where their herds could roll in fatness amidst the exuberant verdure; or the wooded hills, where the red deer could bound through the glade, and snowy flocks could graze, and yellow harvests, sheltered from the northern winds, could ripen in the sun.” Indeed they did. This was all right,――Christian in the highest degree. “Godliness is profitable unto all things.” “The hand of the diligent maketh rich.” The prior of the monastery was not a despot revelling in the toil of others: he was the father of the household; he was the head workman, accompanying his brethren to the field of honest toil and remunerative industry. Benedict, usually called St. Benedict, early in the sixth century established a monastery, which subsequently attained great celebrity, upon the side of Mount Cassano, near Naples. None were admitted to it but men of pure lives, and who had established a reputation for such amiability of character as would insure their living harmoniously with the other brethren. It became the home of piety, industry, and temperance: the persecuted sought refuge there; scholars sought a retreat there; missionaries went out from it into the wastes which war and vice had desolated.