4 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



be said to begin. Now, for the first time, the mists 

 permanently lift, and little by little, as they gradually 

 roll away, we catch sight of the familiar landscape, 

 on whose face we can see, in active movement, men 

 already beginning to speak the rudiments of the En- 

 glish tongue, and slowly emerging into conditions in 

 which we are able to recognise the beginnings of civil- 

 isation and culture. We have not time to indicate the 

 many complex agencies and influences which contributed 

 to bring about this change. For our immediate purpose 

 it will be sufticient to mention the most prominent and 

 powerful of these agencies — the Monasteries. The mon- 

 astic idea was not new to Christendom. The Celtic 

 Church, by which the northern part of the island had 

 been won to the Faith, was a purely monastic church. 

 All over Europe, from the fouith century onwards, the 

 monk and his cell had awakened reverence or excited 

 derision, according to the disposition of the beholder. 

 But in the eleventh and twelfth centuries it seemed 

 as if the monastic system had suddenly received an in- 

 fusion of new life, and entered upon a fresh career. 

 The conflict with Paganism was nearly over, and the 

 Church now proceeded to consolidate the conquests she 

 had so hardly won. And the chief instrument she 

 used for this purpose was the monastery, and her most 

 trusty agent was the monk. It has been the fashion 

 to decry both, and it may be freely admitted that there 

 was much that was defective in the principle, and much 

 that was evil, or at least capable of abuse, in the system. 

 But the debt of civilisation to the monastic orders can- 

 not be over-estimated. In a time of political and social 

 anarchy they preserved the semblance of order. They 

 were the conservators of art and learning, which, humanly 

 speaking, but for them, would have perished in a universal 

 and overwhelming torrent of barbarism. And they kept 

 alight, however dimly, the lamp of truth, when it was in 

 danger of going out in utter darkness. With the estab- 

 lishment of the great Border monasteries, then, the 



