cated herself to God from childhood. When her brother came to his mountain monastery, she followed him, and founded a religious house in the valley below (it is supposed at the spot called Plumbariola), where she devoted herself to a life of prayer with a small community of pious women her companions.

"There is something striking in the attachment of the brother and sister, the human affection struggling with the hard spirit of monasti cism. S. Scholastica was a female Benedict. Equally devout, equally powerful in attracting and ruling the minds of recluses of her own sex, the remote foundress of convents, almost as numerous as those of her brother's rule. With the most perfect harmony of disposition, one in holiness, one in devotion, they were of different sexes and met but once a year."-Milman.

It was here that they met for the last time and passed the day together in pious exercises. At this last interview Scholastica implored Benedict to remain with her till the morning, that they might praise God through the night; but the saint refused, saying that it was impossible for him to be absent from his convent. Then Scholastica bent over her clasped hands and prayed, and, though the weather was beautiful and there was not a cloud in the sky, the rain began immediately to fall in such torrents, accompanied by thunder and lightning of such a terrific kind, that neither Benedict nor the brethren who were with him could leave the place where they were. "The Lord be merciful to you, my sister," said the Abbot, "what have you done." "You have rejected my prayers," answered Scholastica, "but God has been more merciful," and thus the brother and sister remained together till the morning. St. Gregory the Great, who tells the story, says that one must not be surprised that the wish of the sister was heard by God rather than that of the brother, because, of

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the two, the sister was the one who loved him the most, and with God the one who loves the most is always the most powerful.

As we draw nearer the convent, we find a cross in the middle of the way. In front of it, a grating covers the mark of a knee which is said to have been left in the rock by St. Benedict when he knelt there to ask a blessing before laying the foundation-stone of his convent.

Benedict came hither from Subiaco, when he had already been 36 years a monk, led through the windings of the Apennines, says the tradition, alternately by two angels and two birds, till he reached this spur of the mountain above Casinum, which had then already been ruined by Genseric. Strange to say, the inhabitants of this wild district were, in the sixth century of Christianity, still Pagan, and worshipped Apollo in a temple on the top of the mountain, where also was a grove sacred to Venus. Gregory the Great wrote that which he was told by four of Benedict's disciples, three of whom succeeded him in the government of the monastery, and one of whom, Honoratus, was abbot at the time:

"The holy man (Benedict) in changing his home changed not his foe. Nay, rather his conflict grew the more severe, inasmuch as he found the author of evil himself openly warring against him. The strong place called Cassino is situated on the side of a lofty mountain which enfolds the fort in a broad hollow; the mountain itself rears its peak three miles into the air. Here stood a very ancient temple, in which Apollo was worshipped in heathen fashion by the foolish country folk. Groves too, devoted to devil-worship, had grown up on every side, in which even still the folly of a crowd of misbelievers kept up blasphemous sacrifices. Hither came the man of God, brake in pieces the idol, overthrew the altar, burnt down the grove, and in Apollo's own temple set up a chapel to St. Martin, and, where the altar of the god had stood, a chapel to St. John. Here he tarried, and by preaching the gospel far and near brought over a host of converts to

the Faith. This was more than his old enemy could quietly bear. So now, not secretly, nor in dreams, but quite openly he presented himself before the saint, and with great shouts complained that violence was being done him. To whom the holy man answered never a word, tho the fiend taunted him saying, "No Benedict, but Maledict thou! What hast thou to do with me, why persecutest thou me?"

Dante writes in allusion to this:

S. Gregory the Great, ii. 8.

"Quel monte, a cui Cassino è nella costa,
Fu frequentato già in su la cima

Dalla gente ingannata e mal disposta.
Ed io son quel che su vi portai prima
Lo nome di Colui che'n terra addusse
La verità, che tanto ci sublima;

E tanta grazia sovra me rilusse,

Ch'io ritrassi le ville circostanti

Dall 'empio culto che'l mondo sedusse."

Par. xxii.

Seated on the greensward in front of the convent, with the glorious view before us, it will be interesting, before we enter the monastery, to go back to its story.

According to a bull of Pope Zacharias of 748, the abbey was built on land of Tertullus, father of the young Placidus, one of the favourite disciples of S. Benedict. The Patriarch was probably attracted to that especial spot by the desire of attacking Paganism in one of its last strongholds, by cutting down the grove of Venus, and destroying the temple of Apollo. He worked with his own hands at the building, and he is said to have fought in person with the Evil One, who tried to interfere with his work, and to have subdued him when he had successfully disinterred unhurt one of his monks whom the arch-enemy had buried under a fallen wall.

On the site of the temple, Benedict built two oratories, one to St. John Baptist the first hermit, the other to St. Mar

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tin the famous monk-bishop of Gaul. Around them, he erected dwellings for his disciples, with mills, store-houses, and all necessary buildings, so that everything required for daily life might be found within the walls of the monastery. "Here the monastic life," according to the expression of Pope Urban II., "flowed from the heart of Benedict as from the fountain of Paradise," * for here he composed the famous Rule of his Order.

The Rule of S. Benedict was founded on the original observance of poverty, chastity, and obedience, said to have been delivered to Pachomius for the use of the eastern hermits by an angel, but to this he added many details to fit it for a community residing together.

The Rule is divided into 73 chapters; 9 are on the respective duties of the abbot and monks; 13 on divine worship; 29 on discipline-offences and their punishments; 10 upon the internal administration of the monastery; 12 on different subjects, such as the reception of strangers, the conduct to be observed by the brethren when travelling, &c.

The Rule had two great principles-constant action and implicit obedience. S. Benedict did not wish that his monks should confine themselves to meditation or the internal action of the soul, but insisted upon constant outward action either of manual or literary labour. Idleness, he averred, was the great enemy of the soul. Every hour of the day was to be employed as the seasons permitted, and as the praises of God were to be sung seven times a day, so seven hours of the day were to be devoted to active labour. If any

"Ipse omnium monachorum pater, et Casinense monasterium caput omnium perpetuo habeatur et merito, nam ex eodem loco de Benedicti pectore monastici ordinis religio quasi de Paradisi fonte emanavit."-Bulla Urbani, ad cale. Chron. Casinen.

monk boasted of his own proficiency in any occupation, that occupation was to be changed, that it might not be a snare to him. Those who sold the produce of the lands of the convent, were always to sell a little cheaper than their neighbours, for the love of God. The patrician youths who joined the community were in all things to live on equal terms with the peasant monks: there was to be no distinction of persons. Obedience in the eyes of Benedict was a work-" obedientiæ laborem." A monk only entered the convent by a voluntary sacrifice of self, he renounced self utterly, to fix his soul entirely on God. To the monk his superior was to be God's earthly representative: to him his obedience was to be prompt, perfect, absolute. Obedience was the first step of humility. "Our life in this world," said Benedict, "is like the ladder which Jacob saw in his dream: in order that it may reach heaven, it must be planted by the Saviour in a humbled heart: we can only mount by the different steps of humility and discipline." Difficult as it may seem to others, the founder asserted that he believed his Rule contained nothing too hard or too difficult to follow, and ended by saying that it was but "a little beginning, a modest introduction to Christian perfection."-"Initium conversationis.. hanc minimam inchoationis regulam."

Thirteen hundred years have passed away since the Rule of Benedict was laid down, yet no change has been made in it by his followers. The only reforms have led back to a more exact observance of the code which the founder drew up.

St. Gregory the Great, who has left us a biography of S. Benedict, describes his life at Monte Cassino, how he