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in most cases became lax in the observance of the rules of their 
order, and worldly-minded. Hence sprang a succession of 
reformed orders, just as Wesleyanism arose when the Church of 
England had lost in so many places its spirituality. 
The Abbeys and Priories whose ruins we are delighted to 
visit were the result of private munificence, the founders being 
chiefly wealthy landowners. Some were built for the glorification 
of God or some patron saint, some in fulfilment of a vow, some as 
an expiation of some crime, some in the hope that the founders’ 
lives might be preserved whilst fighting abroad, some as a dedi- 
cation of their wealth to God in the absence of heirs to succeed, 
but all with a sense of satisfaction that the good work performed 
by them might propitiate God and secure the salvation of their 
own souls and the souls of their ancestors and descendants. 
The bodies of the founder and of the various members of his 
family were buried within the precincts of the abbey, and obits 
and masses for their repose occupied much of the attention of 
the religious fraternity from year to year. This being so, when 
walking through the ruins of some mouldering abbey, the intelli- 
gent visitor must feel the vanity of human life and hopes, At 
Whalley Abbey the outlines of this once spacious monastic 
church can barely be traced, whilst not a vestige remains to 
shew where founders or abbots lie buried. 
Stanlawe Abbey, the parent of Whalley Abbey, was in exist- 
ence about a hundred years before the migration of the monks to 
Whalley. Of the important and complete monastery of Stanlawe 
little remains, and what remains, an old doorway or window, will 
soon pass away, if it has not already, and still within the walls 
would be buried the remains of founders and benefactors, and a 
long line of abbots and monks. 
The Essayist then went on to give a description of the Friars, 
the Augustinian Monks and Collegiate Bodies, Male and 
Female Recluses and the various Military Orders, as also the 
Hospitals and Leper Houses, and in doing so verified his remarks 
by giving historical incidents in connection with the Abbeys of 
Furness, Salley, Whalley and Stanlawe, Bolton Priory, the 
Hospital at Ribchester, and the Leper Hospital at Edisford, near 
Clitheroe. 
He coneluded by saying that however widely the religious 
Opinions of most of us may differ from the tenets of those 
who built them, and as to the good or evils of the system, and 
though we may feel that such institutions are unsuited to the 
present age we shall do well to remember that they had much 
that was good and beneficial to humanity, agriculture and art, 
for besides succouring the poor and befriending tlie labourer, 
they were the nurseries of learning and had undoubtedly as 
their primary object the physical, moral and religious improve- 
