THE SOUTH DEVON 



MONTHLY MUSEUM. 



PLYMOUTH, MAY IST, 1834. 

 No. 17.J PRICE SIXPENCE. [VoL. III. 



BUCKLAND ABBEY.* 



THE institution of the monastic life arose at an early 

 period of the Christian era. Its origin was partly de- 

 rived from that powerful spring of action, the imitative 

 principle. From the example of Elijah, who retired 

 to the seclusion of Mount Carmel, an order of devotees 

 was induced to withdraw from the world, under the 

 appellation of Carmelites. Like the first Christians of 

 Jerusalem, these zealots relinquished their goods to 

 the use of their respective communities ; and assumed 

 the names of Hermits, Monks, and Anachorets, to 

 denote their residence in the shade of solitude. In the 

 reign of Constantine, these Ascetics addicted them- 

 selves to a course of self denial and discipline more 

 rigid and painful than that of the Stoics ; and disdained, 

 as fiercely as the Cynics themselves, the decencies and 

 civilities of society. Their command of silence and 

 subordination exceeded the Pythagorean injunction of 

 profound, implicit acquiescence in the dictates of the 

 philosopher, during a limited season. Egypt, the 

 fruitful parent of superstition, produced the earliest 

 specimen of the monastic character. Antony, an illi- 

 terate youth of Thebias, having distributed his patri- 

 mony, and left his home, exercised his monastic vows 

 of penance and mortification with unprecedented and 

 insuperable fanaticism. After a long and rigorous 

 noviciate, among the tombs and in a ruined tower, he 



* Arms, Quarterly Argent and Gules, a Crosier, in bend, or. 



VOL. III. 1834. AA 



