ON THE CHARTERS OF CLEEVE ABBEY. 67 
Thus in piety and honour Cleeve Abbey continued to 
Aourish for several hundred years, and to fulfil the great 
purposes for which it was founded. Its walls, still lovely 
in decay, re-echoed almost hourly with the prayers and 
praises of Christian men, and typified in their beauty and 
repose the majesty and perfeetion as well as the holiness 
and peace of Heaven. It was one of those great human- 
izers which alone for centuries availed to rescue European 
society from the savage influences which otherwise would 
have ruled supreme. It was Church, college, guesthouse, 
school, refuge, infirmary, hospital and inn, combined and 
in kindly union—a nucleus of eivilization—a centre of se- 
eurity, sociability, and noble hospitality—all graced and 
glorified by a sacred light which cast its bright beams over 
surrounding regions, sunk but for it in a long and dark 
night of ferocity, tyranny and erime. Hence went the in- 
fluence forth, which curbed the strong, raised the degraded, 
vindieated the oppressed, and eoerced the lawless. Here 
the doors were ever open, in agreement with the inscription 
on its stately gatehouse, and all ranks, from the sovereign 
to the beggar, found a welcome within their pale. Here, 
and in similar Houses, dwelt the best, the holiest, and the 
wisest ofthe day—the most profound of scholars, the most 
skilful of builders, the most expert of artificers, the most 
generous of landlords, the most princely of patrons, the 
most hospitable of hosts. And their presence and beauti- 
ful home, in places and during ages in which there was no 
middle class, and naught else but themselves between the 
lord of the soil and his subject vassal, was the point at 
which all met upon common ground—at which the great 
man thought not of his greatness, nor the humble man 
of his humility, but recognized a bond, closer and more 
