OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN 



away. We of to-day pride ourselves on a wider 

 view of life, on a higher conception of duty, 

 expressed in lives dedicated to public work as 

 a necessary complement to private virtue. Still, 

 if we would judge fairly this age of contem- 

 plation and faith within the convent walls, and 

 all that, even if done mistakenly and imperfectly, 

 it aspired to do, we must realise, as best we can, 

 the world without those walls. One of our 

 poets has vividly reflected it for us when he 

 speaks of man's life as made up of "whole 

 centuries of folly, noise, and sin." So bitter was 

 life then and even later, that by the thirteenth 

 and fourteenth centuries, when mysticism had 

 claimed many votaries, eternal rest, even at the 

 cost of personal annihilation, was the whispered 

 desire of many devout souls. 



" A Simple Stillness." " An Eternal Silence." 

 These are the words that float across the cen- 

 turies to us, like echoes from troubled, longing 

 hearts. These are the words that give us the 

 key to the understanding of the choice of 

 vocation of the mediasval woman. The spiritual 

 need for harmony and peace may have been 

 great ; the practical need was perhaps even 

 greater ; for in its accomplishment the spiritual 

 found its consummation. 



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