You Would Be Likely Enough To Fancy That These Monastics Are Men
Who Have Retired To The Sacred Sites Of
Palestine from an
enthusiastic longing to devote themselves to the exercise of
religion in the midst of the very land
On which its first seeds
were cast; and this is partially, at least, the case with the monks
of the Greek Church, but it is not with enthusiasts that the
Catholic establishments are filled. The monks of the Latin
convents are chiefly persons of the peasant class from Italy and
Spain, who have been handed over to these remote asylums by order
of their ecclesiastical superiors, and can no more account for
their being in the Holy Land, than men of marching regiments can
explain why they are in "stupid quarters." I believe that these
monks are for the most part well conducted men, punctual in their
ceremonial duties, and altogether humble-minded Christians. Their
humility is not at all misplaced, for you see at a glance (poor
fellows!) that they belong to the LAG REMOVE of the human race. If
the taking of the cowl does not imply a complete renouncement of
the world, it is at least (in these days) a thorough farewell to
every kind of useful and entertaining knowledge, and accordingly
the low bestial brow and the animal caste of those almost Bourbon
features show plainly enough that all the intellectual vanities of
life have been really and truly abandoned. But it is hard to
quench altogether the spirit of inquiry that stirs in the human
breast, and accordingly these monks inquire - they are ALWAYS
inquiring inquiring for "news"! Poor fellows!
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