perpetual vow; and his irrevocable engagement
was ratified by the laws of the church and state. A guilty fugitive
was pursued, arrested, and restored to his perpetual prison; and the
interposition of the magistrate oppressed the freedom and the merit,
which had alleviated, in some degree, the abject slavery of the monastic
discipline. The actions of a monk, his words, and even his thoughts,
were determined by an inflexible rule, or a capricious superior:
the slightest offences were corrected by disgrace or confinement,
extraordinary fasts, or bloody flagellation; and disobedience, murmur,
or delay, were ranked in the catalogue of the most heinous sins. A
blind submission to the commands of the abbot, however absurd, or even
criminal, they might seem, was the ruling principle, the first virtue of
the Egyptian monks; and their patience was frequently exercised by the
most extravagant trials. They were directed to remove an enormous rock;
assiduously to water a barren staff, that was planted in the ground,
till, at the end of three years, it should vegetate and blossom like a
tree; to walk into a fiery furnace; or to cast their infant into a deep
pond: and several saints, or madmen, have been immortalized in monastic
story, by their thoughtless and fearless obedience. The freedom of the
mind, the source of every generous and rational sentiment, was destroyed
by the habits of credulity and submission; and the monk, contracting
the vices of a slave, devoutly followed the faith and passions of his
ecclesiastical tyrant. The peace of the Eastern church was invaded by
a swarm of fanatics, incapable of fear, or reason, or humanity; and the
Imperial troops acknowledged, without shame, that they were much less
apprehensive of an encounter with the fiercest Barbarians.

Superstition has often framed and consecrated the fantastic garments of
the monks: but their apparent singularity sometimes proceeds from
their uniform attachment to a simple and primitive model, which the
revolutions of fashion have made ridiculous in the eyes of mankind. The
father of the Benedictines expressly disclaims all idea of choice
of merit; and soberly exhorts his disciples to adopt the coarse and
convenient dress of the countries which they may inhabit. The monastic
habits of the ancients varied with the climate, and their mode of life;
and they assumed, with the same indifference, the sheep-skin of the
Egyptian peasants, or the cloak of the Grecian philo