With the fall of the monastic houses much of this work was dropped. The Anglican Church, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had no such hold on the people at large as the Romish Church had acquired. As an organization for dealing with the masses, it was particularly ineffective. In this century the Church has regained something of what it lost, or rather it has covered ground which it had never before really occupied. One of the most striking features of its remarkable activity at the present day is the large part taken by women. Without the service of women, the Church would be unable to carry on the greater portion of its secular work. But there is a noticeable difference between the way in which the work is undertaken in the present age and in what are called the Ages of Faith. That which is now accomplished by co-operation among individuals, without reference to any authority, was formerly only practicable under the ægis of the Church. Women could never have performed that kind of ministry to the community without the help of the Church. It was in the convent they obtained the qualification and the means, and it was the convent garb that protected them in the discharge of their outside duties. There is another aspect in which women’s relation to the Church may be studied. The heads of the great religious houses were necessarily persons of importance, with privileges and great responsibilities. They had considerable wealth at their disposal, and in authority and influence they ranked among the nobles of the land, to whom they were often allied by birth. An abbess was a person to be reckoned with and consulted as much as an abbot. In the age of double monasteries she was superior in power. The origin of these institutions is a little obscure. It has been thought that the idea was derived from Gaul, whither the Saxon princesses were sent to be educated. Dr. Lingard has another theory. He considers the double monasteries were formed to prevent the nuns from having any excuse for intercourse with laymen. A convent could not be worked entirely by women; prejudice and tradition, as well as the limitations of sex, stood in the way. “The functions of the sacred ministry had always been the exclusive privilege of the men, and they alone were able to support the fatigues of husbandry and conduct the extensive estates which many convents had received from the piety of their benefactors.” Men were necessary evils; the question was how to make their presence innocuous.