f love that he had poured forth his erudition on the subject of
the monastic life, we find merely an exhortation such as might be
addressed by any father confessor to one seeking his direction:
"Imitate, in the love of study and of good books, those blessed
disciples of Saint Jerome, Paula and Eustochia, at whose request this
great doctor wrote so many works that are a guiding light to the
church."

What were the rules by which Heloise and her nuns were to live? In
essence not fundamentally different from those in use in regular
monasteries of the Benedictine rule, they are yet of sufficient interest
to warrant us in giving a brief account, a mere abstract, of the very
lengthy and verbose commentary on monasticism which Heloise received
from Abelard. We cannot doubt that a person of her intelligence and
strength of character followed the spirit, not the letter, of the law,
and made her nuns live as she lived, beyond the utmost reach of evil
report.

The three cardinal virtues in the view of monasticism are Chastity,
Poverty, Silence. These the nuns must observe most strictly, and such
observance involves the renunciation of all family ties, of all worldly
affections and desires. As there is less of temptation to worldliness in
the solitary places of the earth, the convent should be remote. The
absurd extent to which the cult of mere chastity was exalted in the
mediaeval mind has been commented on by many a writer; but one little
incident or illustration from the book by which Heloise was to govern
herself and her community may be forgiven us. Abelard quotes from a
letter of Saint Jerome. In the life of Saint Martin, written by
Sulpicius, we read that the saint wished to pay his respects to a virgin
renowned for her exemplary conduct and her chastity, who, it seems, had
spent all her life since girlhood shut up in a small cell. She refused
to allow Saint Martin to come into her dwelling, but, looking out of the
crevice which served for a window, she said: "Father, pray where you
are, for I have never received a visit from any man." Saint Martin "gave
thanks to God that, thanks to such a mode of life, she had preserved her
chastity." The humor, the irony, of such a remark appeals to us; but it
never occurred to Saint Martin, to Saint Jerome, to Abelard, or to
Heloise, that she who had continued chaste merely because she had
bottled herself up in a living tomb did not merit praise for any
extraordinary virtue: one might