i899 J. BELLOWS — MONASTIC ORDERS 35 



on. But every attempt to purify the monastic system by a 

 return to simplicity and severity in discipline, is like the 

 effort to tighten a screw with overworn threads : the 

 result, in the one case as in the other, is a momentary 

 firmness, followed by a further sli[)ping back. In respect 

 of the Cistercian reformation itself, I would quote the 

 words of a writer of reputation, a warm eulogist of the 

 services rendered to scholarship by many of the Bene- 

 dictines, notwithstanding the degeneracy of the mass of 

 their members : 



In the " Dictionnaire d'Histoire" of M. N. Bouillet, In- 

 spector-General of Public Instruction in France, the 

 article on " Citeaux " closes thus : " Les Bernardins de- 

 genererent bientot, et leurs desordres necessiterent de 

 frequentes reformes." 



Of these " frequently reformed " Cistercians, the order 

 most celebrated for its strictness is that of La Trappe. 

 It had already been organized before Tintern was com- 

 pleted (that is as early as 1140) ; but of it again we read 

 in the work just cited (Diet. Bouillet, article La Trappe) 

 " Cet ordre, qui s'etait relache, fut reforme en 1662." 



Here we see that an evolution had been going on for 

 more than a thousand years, in the development of the 

 theory that a greater degree of purity is attainable in the 

 convent, than that which is compatible with the family 

 relationships ; for as men of piety, who often brought 

 their piety with them into the cloister, in a character already 

 formed at the mother's knee, and in the environment of 

 the home, were disappointed with the practical outcome 

 of the monastic rules, they naturally tried to amend those 

 rules as the remedy for all shortcomings. 



The discipline of the cloister life tended to bring every- 

 thing to routine, and to the imitation of fixed standards, 

 rather than to develop originality. In agriculture this had 

 some advantages, and the intercourse between members of 



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