38 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiir. 



ideals ; but whether as a whole, both as to time and place, 

 it has set an example to the masses of the people, such 

 as tended to their enlightenment and moral well-being. 



The several efforts at reformation of the orders at 

 which we have glanced, show that in the opinion of 

 such men as Benedict, Bernard, Dominic, and Francis 

 of Assisi, it has repeatedly failed to do this. If, for 

 example, Bernard had not believed that the ornamentation 

 and the stained glass, of which some of the monasteries 

 were so proud, hindered instead of aiding the soul in its 

 effort after Divine communion, he would not have for- 

 bidden the use of them : since his object in founding a 

 new order was that it might maintain that communion 

 more perfectly than the one previously existing, and that 

 it might set the w^orld a purer example. And if, again, 

 the daily round of the cloister monk were compatible 

 with the essential missionary work of preaching the 

 gospel, what need could there be of a new order whose 

 specialty it was to abandon the cloister routine in order 

 that it might effectually preach the gospel ? It would 

 be in vain to argue that the new order was created to 

 meet a new necessity of the times ; for if the whole of 

 Europe had been for ages in a lawless condition, with 

 turbulence and violence everywhere rampant outside the 

 cloister, then the necessity for the preaching was not 

 new, but had existed for ages, and the monastic system 

 had failed to meet it. 



The very grandeur and beauty for which Tintern is 

 so admired are evidence of the failure of its builders to 

 carry out the rules of their founder. Two centuries 

 earher the Cluniac Order had inaugurated a system based 

 on the theory that nothing could be too magnificent in 

 a building dedicated to the service of God. Bernard's 

 rules shew clearly that he regarded this as a fallacy; for, 

 so far from basing worship upon an indulgence of the 



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