THE BIBLE IN THE CONVENTS. 547 Benedictines, in particular, became famous. It would be amusing to state some of the queer reasons they adopted from Origen and Jerome to excuse such pursuits, which seemed to be inconsistent with the rigor of their rule. In their fondness for silence they communicated, as far as possible, by signs. When a monk wanted a book, he must hold out his hand, and make the motion of turning over leaves. He must then make other signs to indicate the particular book wanted. Thus there were distinct signs for the Gospels, the Psalter, the Missal, and others. But if he wanted a book having a heathen for its author, he had to scratch his ear as a dog does with his foot when he itches there; "because not undeservedly are the infidels likened to such animals." A nice hint as to monastic ideas on such subjects! We intended also to have spoken of the vast number of Bibles, and parts of the Bible, copied by the conventual scribes. Though there have been immense destructions of their labors by the ravages of war, by desolating fires, by malice, by fraud, by neglect on the part of the keepers, and by the necessary decays of time, yet such manuscripts still exist in great numbers. A single nun, Diemudis, of Wessobrun in Bavaria, in the time of Gregory VII., who became pope in 1073, besides an almost incredible number of copies of devotional and theological works, wrote several entire Bibles, "to the praise of God, and of the holy apostles, Peter and Paul, the patrons of her convent." But space fails us for entering into such details. The old Clugniacs, when travelling, were wont to beguile the whole distance with chanting the Psalms in order, partly to prevent evil thoughts and vain discourse. No weariness of the way, nor robber demonstrations, could check this exercise. So far did they carry their "psalm-grinding" propensity on all occasions, as to incur no small ridicule on account of it. That inspired book alone, so familiar to their lips and memories, might suffice, by the grace of God, to make them wise unto salvation. It was also a part of our plan to instance numerous individuals, like Peter the Venerable, who were justly celebrated for their scriptural knowledge, "having both Testaments committed to memory;" and Alcuin, "who was exercised in the whole latitude of the Scriptures;" and even that abominable saint Dunstan, whose whole leisure, retrieved from public business, was spent in reading the Scriptures, and collating and correcting the copies. 548 THE BIBLE IN THE CONVENTS. We should like to tell of Anselm, bishop of Lucca in 1806, who knew almost the entire Bible by heart; and, as soon as he was asked, could tell what each of the holy expositors thought on any particular passage:" and of Arnold, bishop of Soissons, who died in 1087, who devoted three years and six months, to the reading and meditation of the Word of God; during all which time, he spake never a word to a single human being. But passing over many such cases, recorded in Mabillon, we must be content with Wulphelm, abbot of Brunvillers near Cologne, who died in 1091, and who had the whole Bible read in his monastery every year; and who also has left a tetrastich which says: "Let the ecclesiastical usage be widely spread, as to the Testaments of the Almighty and let them both be so read as to be completed every year, just as the Psalms are finished in order every week.” Enough has been adduced to show that, amid the densest gloom of the Middle Ages, the monks had light in their Goshens, even if palpable Egyptian darkness brooded almost every where else. But though compelled to omit so much of what relates to the subject before us, we chiefly regret, that the necessity of going into so many matters of fact, precludes us from discussing the effect of all this Bible-reading on the numberless swarms who hived in the honied cells of wealthy monastic establishments. We wonder how it came to pass, that their familiarity with the oracles of God should have had no happier effect in enlightening their minds, and saving their souls. Those are said to be dark times; but mostly because we are, as Coleridge says, "so much in the dark about them." Surely the monks were not all lazy "abbey-lubbers," as Lord Bacon irreverently calls them: nor yet all the friars such bare-footed Carmelites and lousy mendicants as are jeered at by Erasmus. We fondly cherish the memory of a Huss and a Wiclif, and a few other noble confessors and martyrs of the faith, who blaze with planetary brightness along that tract of ten-fold night. But we wot not of thousands of lesser lights which rose and set behind the clouds of oblivion which hide them from our view. On the 21st of December, 1776, at Basle in Swit zerland, an old building was pulled down, which had formerly been part of a Carthusian convent. In a hole made in the wall was found a wooden box, placed there, no one knows when, by a poor monk, called brother Martin. This box contained the following touching confession: "O most merciful God! I know that I can only be saved, and satisfy thy righteousness, by the merit, the innocent suffering and death of thy well-beloved Son. Holy Jesus, my salvation is in thy hands. Thou canst not withdraw the hands of thy love from me; for they have created, and formed, and redeemed me. Thou hast inscribed my name with a pen of iron, in rich mercy, and so as nothing can efface it, on thy side, thy hands, and thy feet." This good brother, unequal to the open avowal of these truths, adds these words: "If I cannot confess these things with my tongue, I at least confess them with my pen and with my heart." God does not summon all his faithful, to come forth and lead the work of reformation, like an Elijah and a Luther. To many who had the needful courage and fortitude, the providential oppor tunity they would have boldly seized, was never given. In many more, like the seven thousand in Israel who bowed not the knee to Baal, the deep obscurity of their life may have screened them alike from the scrutiny of persecution, and the recording pen of history. In others again, like poor Berengarius, the flesh was all too weak, though the spirit was willing. "All are not strong alike through storms to steer They, like the worm that gems the starless night, And was it strange, if they withdrew the ray That did but guide the night-birds to their prey y?" Let us hope that adoring myriads are now bending around the throne of God and the Lamb, who lived and died in the faith, even where the "horror of great darkness" rolled its thickest clouds around the corrupted Church. There would be some satisfaction, as it might serve to vindicate the life-giving power of the Bible, in tracing the reasons why its effects were not more visible in quickening the minds of the Cenobites out of that dull state of "dropping-down-deadness,' which seems to have been their general characteristic before degeneracy came in like a flood, and corruption ran riot in their cloisters. It might not be amiss to shew, that the Bible was meant for men in the world; and having little adaptedness to the cenobitic life, must have been mostly a dead letter in those unpractical retreats. It might be shown that the conventual discipline repressed all individuality, blended all who became subject to it into a uniform mass, suppressed all disposition to inquire and reform, and reduced each mind, according to the infamous Jesuit maxim, to become "as it were a corpse." It were in point too, to speak of those ages of incessant political convulsion, in which all men craved a fixed and definite faith, as the last anchor to which the peace-craving spirit of conservatism could cling. Much also might be said of the absurd system of interpretation, derived and deteriorated from Origen and Jerome, which universally prevailed; which sealed up the meaning even of an open Bible, and made its readers unaware that the Scripture, according to a wise old Puritan, "lieth not in the sound, but in the sense." The Church was long in learning, that "the meaning of the Bible is the Bible." But we refrain from any defence of that blessed book; remembering the remark of Thomas Fuller, that "the Word of God, being the sword of the Spirit, needs not the arm of flesh to defend it." All that we learn of the Dark Ages confirms the conviction, that, as to the vast body of the Christian population, they are of right so named. We well know that there were a few brilliant gas-burners, many wax tapers, and a multitude of tallow-candles, oil-lamps, and rush-lights: but these could never have made a general illumination, much less anything like broad day, amid those centuries of moonless midnight: especially as they were for the most part hidden under beds and bushels, or dimly twinkled in solitary cells and secluded cloisters. Such historical facts would seem to intimate that the mere reading of the Bible, without the faithful preaching and living application of the word, is not ordinarily sufficient for the revival and support of true religion. The word written and the word preached are coördinate powers, of which each is badly lamed and disabled without the other. Yet this abundant Bible-reading within conventual walls was not wholly inoperative. It kept alive, to some extent, the sense of the evils of vice and of the shamefulness of the prevalent moral corruption. And such feelings occasionally prompted to vigorous attempts at reformation. But the reformers seldom got beyond the bounds of monastic notions. Their remedy consisted in getting up new orders of monks and friars, with more austere rules and more rigid practices. And for many ages, almost the whole history of monkery consists in the rise of new and stricter orders, which in turn relaxed their discipline, and sank into the mire of ignorance and indulgence. The facilities and encouragements for getting up new orders were, all this while, "safetyvalves" for letting off the spirit of reform, without exploding the whole frame-work and machinery of Romanism. It would appear that the reading of the Bible was rather encouraged than repressed in the Roman church, till such time as the teachings of the sacred volume began to be urged against the various superstitions and false doctrines of popery. It was then discovered to be a very dangerous book, by no means to be trusted in the hands of the "simple faithful," but to be reserved to the inspection of spiritual guides, who should dispense it to the flock at second hand, if at all. SUFFICIENCY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE. THIS translation has now been in common use for two hundred and thirty-seven years. During that time, innumerable copies have had free course and circulation among the successive generations speaking the English tongue on either side of the Atlantic. During that time, the dynasty of England has changed once and again, America has become the greatest of republics, science has been even more repeatedly and thoroughly revolutionized than politics have been, the arts of life have almost effected a new creation of society, popular intelligence has brightened from its dawnings into the broad light of day, philosophy has restlessly traversed a thousand circles, and even theology has been rushing backward and forward through successive alternations, like a ship beating into port against wind and tide, and losing on one tack what it gains on the other. And yet this version, alone unchanged, remains unrivalled and unthreatened. Though here and there, some have murmured, and some have complained aloud, and some have put forth their skill in "improved" or "amended" versions, they have been wholly unheeded by the great mass of |