y the founder of the Franciscan
Order, Mr Adderley opens his narrative with an admirable sketch of the
history of Monasticism in Europe, which is certainly the best thing in
the book. He distinguishes clearly and fairly between the Manichaean
ideal that underlies so much of Eastern Monasticism and the ideal of
self-discipline which never wholly vanished from the Christian form. But
he does not throw any light on what must be for the outsider the
absorbing problem of this Catholic asceticism, for the excellent reason
that not being an outsider he does not find it a problem at all.

To most people, however, there is a fascinating inconsistency in the
position of St Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language than
any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as tears.
He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to take
pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water as it fell
from his finger: he was, perhaps, the happiest of the sons of men. Yet
this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation of what we
think the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience, he denied to himself and those he loved most,
property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most large-hearted and
poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial atmosphere in
these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all men were
blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a monk, and
not a troubadour? These questions are far too large to be answered fully
here, but in any life of Francis they ought at least to have been asked;
we have a suspicion that if they were answered we should suddenly find
that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours was answered also.
So it was with the monks. The two great parties in human affairs are
only the party which sees life black against white, and the party which
sees it white against black, the party which macerates and blackens
itself with sacrifice because the background is full of the blaze of an
universal mercy, and the party which crowns itself with flowers and
lights itself with bridal torches because it stands against a black
curtain of incalculable night. The revellers are old, and the monks are
young. It was the monks who were the spendthrifts of happiness, and we
who are its misers.

Doubtless, as is apparent from Mr Adderley's book, the clear and
tranquil life of the T