The monastic life is studiously and intentionally monotonous. It aims at the exclusion of all that gives zest and interest to ordinary existence, and at the reduction of life’s employments to a routine. Its variety and color are to be sought in the inner life of its members, and that of Thomas was not wanting in these elements. If his inner experience be reflected in his _Soliloquy of the Soul_, he passed through those shifting seasons of gloom and gladness which characterize the experience of an introverted religion. His religious character was formed on the lines of the modern devotion, as defined by Gerard Groote, and as reflected in the lives and the writings of Florens Radewinzoon, Gerard Zerbolt, Johann Mande, Gerlach Peterszoon, and Johann Brinckerinck, the earlier notable men of the brotherhood or of the Windesheim congregation. His was not a bold and originative mind to strike out new paths for himself. He had not even those gifts of practical administration for which Florens, John à Kempis, and others of the order were notable. Even when he had attained recognition as the most eminent man at Agnietenberg, his brethren twice passed him by in selecting their prior, and never gave him any dignity higher than the sub-priorate, which probably was a sinecure. An early biographer goes so far as to describe him as sitting silent whenever ordinary and worldly matters were discussed, because of his ignorance of the very terms used at such times. But this is an exaggeration. His _Chronicle of the Monastery of Mt. St. Agnes_ shows him taking a mild and not unintelligent interest in the secular side of the monastic life, and sharing the joy of his brethren in the fine apple-crop or the large take of fish, and the like. But this _Chronicle_ shows how limited his range of vision and interest. He lived through the Papal Schism, the Asiatic conquests of Timour, the Council of Constance, the Hussite wars, Henry the Fifth’s invasion of France, the exploits of Jeanne d’Arc, the Council of Basle, the rise of the Medici in Florence, and of the Duchy of Burgundy, the Council of Florence, the exploits of Scanderberg and Hunyadi Janos, the Wars of the Roses, the revival of letters, the invention of printing, the fall of Constantinople, the Florentine Academy, the Portuguese discoveries in the Atlantic, and much more that might be thought likely to be discussed even within the walls of a Dutch monastery. But the record is silent as to all these things; for the most part they are part of the doings of that “world” which the disciples of the modern devotion trained themselves to despise.