ain
groups; in the N. the largest island is Jilolo, but the most important
Tidor and Ternate, which export spices, tortoise-shell, and bees-wax; in
the S. Buru and Ceram are largest, most important, Amboyna, from which
come cloves; the people are civilised Malays; the islands are equatorial,
but tempered by sea-breezes, and healthy; discovered by the Portuguese in
1521, they have been in Dutch possession since 1607, except when held by
Britain 1810-1814.

MOMBASA (Africans and Arabs 20), capital of British East Africa, on
a rocky islet, close inshore, 50 m. N. of Pemba; was ceded with a tract
of country six times the size of the British Isles, and rich in gold,
copper, plumbago, and india-rubber, to the British East African Company
by the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1888, since when it has been rebuilt, and
the harbour, one of the best and healthiest on the coast, made a naval
coaling-station and head-quarters.

MOMMSEN, THEODOR, historian, born in Schleswig, a man of immense
historical knowledge; his greatest work the "History of Rome"; was
professor of Ancient History at Berlin; his _forte_ was his learning more
than his critical capacity; _b_. 1817.

MOMUS, the god of raillery, the son of Night, a kind of ancient
MEPHISTOPHELES (q. v.).

MONACHISM, or MONASTICISM, is an institution in which
individuals devote themselves, apart from others, to the cultivation of
spiritual contemplation and religious duties, and which has constituted a
marked feature in Pre-Christian Jewish asceticism, and in Buddhism as
well as in Christianity; in the Church it developed from the practice of
living in solitude in the 2nd century, and received its distinctive note
when the vow of obedience to a superior was added to the hermit's
personal vows of poverty and chastity; the movement of St. Benedict in
the 6th century stamped its permanent form on Western Monasticism, and
that of St. Francis in the 12th gave it a more comprehensive range,
entrusting the care of the poor, the sick, the ignorant, &c., to the
hitherto self-centred monks and nuns; during the Middle Ages the
monasteries were centres of learning, and their work in copying and
preserving both sacred and secular literature has been invaluable;
English Monachism was swept away at the Reformation; in France at the
Revolution; and later in Spain, Portugal, and Italy it has been
suppressed; brotherhoods and sisterhoods have sprung up in the Protestant
churches of Germany and En