106 PAPERS, ETC. 



and deligktful with the flowers of most sweet contem- 

 plation, within ten days from the time of receiving 

 these presents, and without delay there continuing to 

 reside for the future, as you are by rule bound to do. 

 So that the irregularities of your brethren, concerning 

 which at this time in various places the public voice 

 and fame is more than customarily employed, the integ- 

 rity of your own life may from this time reform ; 

 and that the perfection of your inorals, as a candle set 

 upon a candlestick, may so, for the future, glow and be 

 brigkt, that your light clearly shiniug before men, as well 

 by word as by deed, may furnish an example of more honest 

 conversation to the same your bretbren on all sides ; lest, 

 perchance, otherwise, at a future time, against you whom 

 we have amicably forewarned by these our letters, through 

 your increasing fault and delay, occasion be given to us of 

 proceeding with greater severity. Fare ye well in the 

 Lord." 



The effect of this epistle is not known. Wkether, 



indeed, there was any real foundation for the charges thus 



conveyed is by no means certain. It might, after all, as I 



hinted previously, have been the result of some jealous 



neighbour, such as we know it was the ill fortune of 



Muchelney to possess. Nor would it be fair to take an 



isolated instance of wrong, even could it be clearly proved 



to have existed, and to set it against many centuries 



of excellence, and many generations of blameless men. 



Besides all this, I must not forget to add, that, granting 



the bishop's interference to have been founded on strict 



principles of justice, two conclusions are imperatively 



forced upon us, each of them opposed to modern views on 



the subject of che Keligious Houses, and such as are proof 



positive that those views are erroneous. First, that the 



