The monasteries had gradually degenerated into institutions of indolence and sensuality. The Normans assailed the inmates of these gloomy retreats with the most relentless cruelty. They surrounded with their armed bands these cloistered walls, and, barring the monks within, applied the torch, and danced and sang as the vast pile and all its contents were wrapped in flames. They hated a religion which taught (to them the absurd doctrine) that man was the brother of his fellow-man; that the strong should protect, and not oppress, the weak; that we should forgive our enemies, and treat kindly those who injure us. Like incarnate fiends, they took special pleasure in putting to death, through every form of torture, the teachers of a religion so antagonistic to their depraved natures. Such was the condition of the world at the commencement of the tenth century. Joyless generations came and passed away, and life upon this sin-stricken globe could have been only a burden. From this sketch, necessarily exceedingly brief, it will be seen that man has ever been the most bitter foe of his brother-man. Nearly all the woes of earth are now, and ever have been, caused by sin. What an awful tragedy has the history of this globe been! Almost with anguish, the thoughtful and benevolent mind inquires, “Is there to be no end to this? Is humanity forever to be plunged into the abyss of crime and woe?” It would seem that it must be manifest to every candid mind that there can be no possible remedy but in the religion of Jesus Christ. Love God, your Father; love man, your brother: these are the fundamental principles of the gospel. Every one must admit that the universal adoption of these principles would sweep away from earth nearly all its sorrows. Sin and holiness in this world are struggling for the supremacy: it is a fearful conflict. Every individual is on the one side or the other. Some are more, and some are less zealous. But there is no neutrality: he that is not for Christ is against him. Is there not an influence coming down to us through these long centuries of woe potent enough to induce each one to declare, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”? Accept the religion of Jesus; live in accordance with its teachings: then you will do all in your power to arrest the woes of humanity; and, when Death with his summons shall come, he will present you a passport which will secure your entrance at the golden gate which opens to the paradise of God. CHAPTER XXI. THE DARK AGES.