e chance of being killed. They saw
society, the whole world, going to wrack, as they thought, around them:
what could they do better, than see that their own characters, morals,
immortal souls did not go to wrack with the rest. We wonder why women,
especially women of rank, went into convents; why, as soon as a community
of monks was founded, a community of nuns sprung up near them. The
simplest answer is, common sense sent them thither. The men, especially
of the upper fighting classes, were killed off rapidly; the women were
not killed off, and a large number always remained, who, if they had
wished to marry, could not. What better for them than to seek in
convents that peace which this world could not give?

They may have mixed up with that simple wish for peace the notion of
being handmaids of God, brides of Christ, and so forth. Be it so. Let
us instead of complaining, thank heaven that there was some motive,
whether quite right or not, to keep alive in them self-respect, and the
feeling that they were not altogether useless and aimless on earth. Look
at the question in this light, and you will understand two things; first,
how horrible the times were, and secondly, why there grew up in the early
middle age a passion for celibacy.

Salvian, in a word, had already grown up to manhood and reason, when he
saw a time come to his native country, in which were fulfilled, with
fearful exactness, the words of the prophet Isaiah:--

'Behold, the Lord maketh the land empty, and maketh it waste, and
turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.
And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the
slave, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as
with the seller, so with the buyer; as with the lender, so with the
borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to
him. The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled; for the
Lord hath spoken this word.'

And Salvian desired to know the reason why the Lord had spoken that word,
and read his Bible till he found out, and wrote thereon his book De
Gubernatione Dei, of the government of God; and a very noble book it is.
He takes his stand on the ground of Scripture, with which he shews an
admirable acquaintance. The few good were expecting the end of the
world. Christ was coming to put an end to all these horrors: but why did
he delay his coming? The many weak