ossibly by the side of a gentleman, a nobleman, or even a
prince--and live under equal law with them; and under, too, a discipline
more strict than that of any modern army; and if he would not hew the
wood, or drive the bullocks, as he ought, then the abbot would have him
flogged soundly till he did; which was better for him, after all, than
wandering about to be hooted by the boys, and dying in a ditch at last.

The coward, too--the abbot could make him of use, even though the king
could not. There were, no doubt, in those days, though fewer in number
than now, men who could not face physical danger, and the storm of the
evil world,--delicate, nervous, imaginative, feminine characters; who,
when sent out to battle, would be very likely to run away. Our
forefathers, having no use for such persons, used to put such into a bog-
hole, and lay a hurdle over them, in the belief that they would sink to
the lowest pool of Hela for ever more. But the abbot had great use for
such. They could learn to read, write, sing, think; they were often very
clever; they might make great scholars; at all events they might make
saints. Whatever they could not do, they could pray. And the united
prayer of those monks, it was then believed, could take heaven by storm,
alter the course of the elements, overcome Divine justice, avert from
mankind the anger of an offended God. Whether that belief were right or
wrong, people held it; and the man who could not fight with carnal
weapons, regained his self-respect, and therefore his virtue, when he
found himself fighting, as he held, with spiritual weapons against all
the powers of darkness {214}. The first light in which I wish you to
look at the old monasteries, is as defences for the weak against the
strong.

But what has this to do with what I said at first, as to the masses
having no history? This:--that through these monasteries the masses
began first to have a history; because through them they ceased to be
masses, and became first, persons and men, and then, gradually, a people.
That last the monasteries could not make them: but they educated them for
becoming a people; and in this way. They brought out, in each man, the
sense of individual responsibility. They taught him, whether warrior or
cripple, prince or beggar, that he had an immortal soul, for which each
must give like account to God.

Do you not see the effect of that new thought? Treated as slaves, as
things and animal