244 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



assure herself of abundant food during the cold weather. 

 I, Peter, profiting by this lesson, and desirous, though a 

 sinner and unworthy, to provide for my future destiny, I 

 have desired that the bees of God may come to gather 

 honey in my orchards, so that when their fair hives shall be 

 full of rich combs of this honey, they may be able, while 

 giving thanks to their Creator, to remember him by whom 

 this hive was given." 



Eager, ardent, and impetuous, these anchorites seemed 

 to take the continent by storm. 1 Amid the gloom of the 

 Thuringian forests, among the wild precipices and caves of 

 the mountains of the Hartz, on the wild, desolate shores of 

 the German and Baltic seas, amid the glaciers and fiords 

 of the Scandinavian peninsula, on the banks of the Ysill 

 and the Weser, from the Weser to the Elbe and thence to 

 the ocean, these devoted missionaries toiled and taught and 

 laid down their lives. 



The third great period came at the close of the tenth cen- 

 tury, and may be termed the age of expectancy and dread. 

 All things seemed coming to an end, and the year one thou- 

 sand was fixed upon as the day when the heavens should 

 melt with fervent heat and the hills be rolled together and 

 crushed. We can scarcely form any idea of the feverish 

 state of mind of society. As the days sped on and the time 

 approached for the universal dissolution of nature, the panic 

 was at its height. Property was disposed of for a merely 

 nominal sum, or willed to the Church, the bequest commenc- 

 ing with these words, " In expectation of the approaching end 

 of the world." The monasteries and abbeys received vast 

 acquisitions of property and were thronged with sinners 

 1 McLear, Apostles of Mediaeval Europe. 



