d quarrelling and drinking, this same Sir Bertrand--finding
that on the whole the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the
pride of life, were poor paymasters, and having very sufficient proof, in
the ends of many a friend and foe, that the wages of sin are death--'fell
to religion likewise, and was a hermit in that same place, after the holy
man was dead; and was made priest of that same chapel; and died in
honour, having succoured many good knights, and wayfaring men'?

One knows very well that it would not be right now; that it is not needed
now. It is childish to repeat that, when the question is, was it right
then--or, at least, as right as was possible then? Was it needed
then--or, at least, the nearest thing to that which was needed?

If it was, why should not wisdom be justified of all her children?

One hopes that she was; for certainly, if any men ever needed to be in
the right, lest they should be of all men most miserable, it was these
same old hermits. Praying and preaching continually, they lived on food
which dogs would not eat, in dens in which dogs ought not to live. They
had their reasons. Possibly they knew their own business best. Possibly
also they knew their neighbour's business somewhat; they knew that such
generations as they lived in could not be taught, save by some
extravagant example of this kind, some caricature, as it were, of the
doctrines which were to be enforced. Nothing less startling, perhaps,
could have touched the dull hearts, have convinced the dull brains, of
fierce, ignorant, and unreasoning men.

Ferocity, lawlessness, rapine, cruelty, and--when they were glutted and
debauched by the spoils of the Roman empire--sensuality, were the evils
which were making Europe uninhabitable for decent folk, and history--as
Milton called it--a mere battle of kites and crows. What less than the
example of the hermit--especially when that hermit was a delicate and
high-born woman--could have taught men the absolute superiority of soul
to body, of spiritual to physical force, of spiritual to physical
pleasure, and have said to them, not in vain words, but solid acts--'All
that you follow is not the way of life. The very opposite to it is the
way of life. The wages of sin are death; and you will find them so,--in
this life the victims of your own passions, and of the foes whom your
crimes arouse, and in life to come of hell for ever. But I tell you I
have no mind to go to hell.