They were not so dour and solemn as some others of the monastic orders, and typified the spiritual joy that filled their hearts by the white habits they adopted; largely, however, as a protest against the penitential Benedictines. For harmony never did exist between the monks of different rules, who were jealous of some and despiteful to others, according to circumstances. Most orders, however, united in despising and ridiculing the Cistercians, who were in this, as in the simplicity of their rule, and in the severe, unornamental character of their original Abbeys, the Plymouth Brethren and the Presbyterians of their age. The first type of Cistercian house was almost as simple as a Dissenting Chapel of our own times. In the churches of other orders the Rood was made as ornate, and of as costly materials, as possible: often glowing with gold and silver and precious stones. The Cistercian monks, however, remembering that Our Lord died upon a cross of wood, placed a crucifix of plain wood in their churches, and throughout the whole of the establishment conducted themselves as the sanctified farmers they really were: not even scrupling to absent themselves from Mass at harvest-time. If it be true—and it is a noble belief—that “to labour is to pray,” then the early Cistercians prayed well; for with all their might they brought lands under cultivation, and tended and improved stock, and helped the world along toward the distant ideal. But as time went on, and the order grew rich by dint of its own farming and wool-growing successes, and by a never-failing stream of benefactions, the Abbots and monks by degrees became arrogant and lazy. They no longer worked in their fields; leaving the practical farming to the lay-brothers and the horde of dependents they had accumulated. As landowners they were even more grasping than secular landlords, and, in common with other orders, were extremely tenacious of their rights of market and other monopolies; thus earning for themselves a hatred which was in course of time to sweep them out of existence. The Cistercians were not alone—nor perhaps even as prominent as others—in these worldly ways; but they shared in the growing arrogance and luxury of these bodies originally vowed to poverty and practising their vows because they did not own the wherewithal to do otherwise. Their churches and domestic buildings were rebuilt elaborately and their Abbots travelled _en grand seigneur_ through the country; persons claiming great consideration. [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO CLEEVE ABBEY.]