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ENGLISH PLEASURE GARDENS 



monks. " It was the special glory of St. Benedict " 

 (the founder of the order to which St. Augustine 

 belonged) "to teach the men of his day that work 

 sanctified by prayer is the best thing a man can do, 

 and this lesson has never been lost sight of since his 

 time." Thus within the walls of the Benedictine 

 monasteries were large gardens % cultivated by the 

 monks in common, and often smaller ones assigned 

 to the abbot and to the chief almoner of the com- 

 munity. Here flowers, despised by the earliest Chris- 

 tians as symbols of paganism, were now grown to 

 decorate the church. The rose was held in the high- 

 est esteem. At Subiaco is still preserved the roseto, 

 a little rose garden set apart for St. Benedict. The 

 rose-bushes it contains are said to be the same as 



those whose beauty de- 

 lighted his senses, and with 

 whose thorns he was ac- 

 customed to mortify his 

 flesh when endeavouring 

 to chase away thoughts of 

 the beautiful temptress. 



With the cross the 

 monks carried the plough. 

 The Benedictines were 

 accordingly called by Monsieur Guizot the D'efricheurs 

 of Europe. In England, to the Benedictine St. 



