ome
back. But no entreaty could turn Paula from her pious though hardly
commendable purpose. "She overcame her love for her children by her love
for God." That was the favorable judgment of the time. A less
enthusiastic, but saner, age can hardly bestow such unmitigated praise.

After a journey through all the places made famous by Scripture, in
every one of which they were received with great honor, Paula and her
daughter made their home at Bethlehem, where Jerome already had his
cell. There she built a convent; and for eighteen years she devoted her
life to the training of the many virgins who resorted to her company,
attracted by the fame of her holiness. At her death, the manner of which
was truly edifying, it was found that Paula had disposed of the whole of
her property in charity. Though it is probable that these ascetic women
were to a large extent under the influence of motives less exalted than
that mentioned above, much good intention must be laid to their credit;
and doubtless their extreme self-denial was not without a salutary
effect in a sensual world. At the end of his description of her death,
which he wrote for her daughter, Jerome says: "And now, Paula, farewell,
and aid with your prayers the old age of your votary."

VI

THE NUNS OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH

WE have already given some attention to certain famous Christian women
who, in the earliest ages of the Church, dedicated themselves to the
ascetic life. But monasticism, occupying as it did so extensive and
important a field in the early Church, deserves the devotion of nothing
less than a chapter to the consideration of its effect upon the life of
women, and to the part they played in its establishment. In describing
the friends of Jerome--Paula, Eustochium, Asella, and the others--we
dwelt more on the moral aspect of primitive asceticism, its
exaggerations, its wrong-headedness, its influence upon family life; it
is now our purpose to take a brief glance at the organization of female
monasticism, and to notice its effect upon the social life of women. For
it cannot be otherwise than that so popular and general an institution
as this must at the time have profoundly affected human existence. A
great multitude of men and women taken out of common society and living
apart under conditions entirely contradictory to the instinct and usages
of the race must have shaken the body politic in every direction,
causing a movement of influences far