remonies, a sort of modified austerity, and an idle and empty routine
of monotonous life.

Monastic life was quite a different thing in the middle ages; it was
much more serious. There were then in the convents both more training
for death, and a more active life. The system was, generally speaking,
based upon two principles, which were sincerely and strictly adhered
to: the destruction of the body, and the vivification of the soul. To
war against the body they employed an exterminating fasting, excessive
vigils, and frequent bleeding. For the development of the soul, the
monks and nuns were made to read, transcribe, and sing. Up to the
eleventh century they understood what they sang, as there was but
little difference between Latin and the vulgar tongues of that period.
The service had then a dramatic character, which sustained and
constantly captivated the attention. Many things that have been
reduced to simple words, were then expressed in gestures and
pantomimes; what is now spoken was then _acted_. When they inflicted
upon worship that serious, sober, and wearisome character that it still
wears, the nuns were still allowed, as an indemnification, pious
reading, legends, the lives of saints, and other books that had been
translated. All these consolations were taken from them in the
sixteenth century; the discovery was made, that it was dangerous to
give them too great a taste for reading. In the seventeenth, even
singing appeared to be an object of suspicion to many confessors; they
were afraid the nuns might grow tender in singing the praises of God.[1]

But what did they give them as a substitute? What did they get in
return for all those services which they no longer understood, for
their reading and singing that were now denied them, and for so many
other comforts, of which they were successively deprived?

Was it an inanimate object? No, it was a man; let us speak out
plainly, the _director_. The director was a novelty, hardly known to
the middle ages, contented with the confessor.

Yes, a man is to inherit all this vast vacant place: his conversation
and teaching are to fill up the void. Prayers, reading, if it be
permitted, everything, will be done according to his direction and by
him. God, whom they imbibed in their books, or in their sight, even
God is henceforward dispensed to them by this man--measured out to them
day by day according to the standard of his heart.

Ideas come crowding