n this, as in every other instance, he wished the reform,
when determined upon, to proceed gently and gradually.

All who leave had an opportunity of observing the English communities
since their arrival in this country, have been edified by their amiable
and heroic virtues. Their resignation to the persecution which they have
so undeservedly suffered, their patience, their cheerfulness, their
regular discharge of their religious observances, and, above all, their
noble confidence in Divine Providence, have gained them the esteem of
all who know them. At a village near London, a small community of
Carmelites lived for several months, almost without the elements of
fire, water, or air. The two first (for water, unfortunately, was there
a vendible commodity) they could little afford to buy; and from the last
(their dress confining them to their shed) they were excluded. In the
midst of this severe distress, which no spectator could behold unmoved,
they were happy. Submission to the will of God, fortitude, and
cheerfulness, never deserted them. A few human tears would fall from
them when they thought of their convent; and with gratitude, the finest
of human feelings, they abounded; in other respects they seemed of
another world. "Whatever," says Dr. Johnson, "withdraws us from the
power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the
future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of
human beings." It would be difficult to point out persons to whom this
can be better applied than these venerable ladies, whose lives are more
influenced by the past, the distant, or the future, or so little
influenced by the present.

Our author was not so warm on any subject as the calumnies against the
religious of the middle age: he considered the civilization of Europe to
be owing to them. When they were charged with idleness, he used to
remark the immense tracts of land, which, from the rudest state of
nature, they converted to a high state of husbandry in the Hercynian
wood, the forests of Champagne and Burgundy, the morasses of Holland,
and the fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. When ignorance was
imputed to them, he used to ask, what author of antiquity had reached
us, for whose works we were not indebted to the monks. He could less
endure that they should be considered as instruments of absolute power
to enslave the people: when this was intimated, he observed that, during
the period which immediat