Three Ideals. 103 



has been fruitful of fresh modes of their manifestation, 

 and some new embodiment of the ascetic spirit has ap- 

 peared for a time on the crest of the advancing wave of 

 Christian aggression on the world. After the martyrs 

 came the Fathers of the Desert, then the Benedictines, to 

 be succeeded by the white-robed Cistercians, themselves 

 to give way to the friars, whose influence was afterwards 

 overshadowed by the valiant soldiers of Loyola. Arguing 

 simply from analogy, it is not likely but that the same 

 cause may produce again effects similarly appropriate to 

 time and place. The old religious orders did not adopt 

 picturesque or fantastic costumes, but slight modifications 

 of fashions in vogue in their day amongst the poorest 

 class, so that each at its origin appeared far less peculiar 

 than at present. 



Hard work and charity under one form or another were 

 universally obligatory, and to this day the Trappist works 

 like a day-labourer. It may well be then that manual 

 toil in other forms, and a fresh modification of fraternal 

 charity, will cause religious congregations to be as heartily 

 welcomed and beloved by a socially democratic republican 

 community as ever they were in the ninth, thirteenth, or 

 sixteenth centuries. 



Even under a communistic regime, presided over by 

 some "Albert ouvrier," a body of workmen who were 

 only distinguished from their fellows by a larger spirit of 

 fraternity, and a disposition to take a greater share of 



