ble selfishness,
if rightly considered; but one which accorded with the delusion that
this world is a cave of care, the other world a place of torture or
undying bliss, death the prime object of our meditation, and lifelong
abandonment of our fellow-men the highest mode of existence. Why,
then, should monks, so persuaded of the riddle of the earth, have
placed themselves in scenes so beautiful? Why rose the Camaldolis and
Chartreuses over Europe? white convents on the brows of lofty hills,
among the rustling boughs of Vallombrosas, in the grassy meadows of
Engelbergs,--always the eyries of Nature's lovers, men smitten with
the loveliness of earth? There is surely some meaning in these poetic
stations.

Here is a sentence of the _Imitatio_ which throws some light upon
the hymn of S. Francis and the sites of Benedictine monasteries, by
explaining the value of natural beauty for monks who spent their life
in studying death: 'If thy heart were right, then would every creature
be to thee a mirror of life, and a book of holy doctrine. There is no
creature so small and vile that does not show forth the goodness
of God.' With this sentence bound about their foreheads, walked Fra
Angelico and S. Francis. To men like them the mountain valleys and the
skies, and all that they contained, were full of deep significance.
Though they reasoned '_de conditione humanae miseriae_,' and '_de
contemptu mundi_,' yet the whole world was a pageant of God's
glory, a testimony to His goodness. Their chastened senses, pure
hearts, and simple wills were as wings by which they soared above the
things of earth, and sent the music of their souls aloft with every
other creature in the symphony of praise. To them, as to Blake, the
sun was no mere blazing disc or ball, but 'an innumerable company
of the heavenly host singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God
Almighty."' To them the winds were brothers, and the streams were
sisters--brethren in common dependence upon God their Father, brethren
in common consecration to His service, brethren by blood, brethren by
vows of holiness. Unquestioning faith rendered this world no puzzle;
they overlooked the things of sense because the spiritual things
were ever present, and as clear as day. Yet did they not forget
that spiritual things are symbolised by things of sense; and so the
smallest herb of grass was vital to their tranquil contemplations.
We who have lost sight of the invisible world, who set our affec