ven with Moses
and Elijah. 'Being chosen by God, like another Moses, to conduct
faithful souls into the true promised land, the kingdom of heaven, he
was enriched with eminent supernatural gifts, even those of miracles and
prophecy. He seemed, like another Eliseus, endued by God with an
extraordinary power, commanding all nature, and, like the ancient
prophets, foreseeing future events. He often raised the sinking courage
of his monks, and baffled the various artifices of the devil with the
sign of the cross, rendered the heaviest stone light, in building his
monastery, by a short prayer, and, in presence of a multitude of people,
raised to life a novice who had been crushed by the fall of a wall at
Monte Cassino.' Montalembert omits the more extraordinary miracles,
except the deliverance of Placidus from the whirlpool, which he relates
in the language of Bossuet, ii. 15.

[9] 'Scienter nesciens, et sapienter indoctus.'

[10] The Catholic Church has recognized three other rules besides that
of St. Benedict, viz.: 1. That of St. Basil, which is stilt retained by
the Oriental monks; 2. That of St. Augustine, which is adopted by the
regular canons, the order of the preaching brothers or Dominicans, and
several military orders; 3. The rule of St. Francis of Assisi and his
mendicant order, in the thirteenth century.

[11] Pope Gregory believed the rule of St. Benedict even to be directly
inspired, and Bossuet (_Panegyrie de Saint Benoit_), in evident
exaggeration, calls it 'an epitome of Christianity, a learned and
mysterious abridgement of all doctrines of the gospel, all the
institutions of the holy fathers, and all the counsels of perfection.'
Montalembert speaks in a similar strain of French declamatory eloquence.

[12] Cap. 5: 'Primus humilitatis gradus est obedientia sine mora. Haec
convenit iis, qui nihil sibi Christo carius aliquid existimant: propter
servitium sanctum, quod professi sunt, seu propter metum gehennae, vel
gloriam vitae aeternae, mox ut aliquid imperatum a majore fuerit, ac si
divinitus imperetur, moram pati nesciunt in faciendo.'

[13] Cap. 48: 'Otiositas inimica est animae; et ideo certis temporibus
occupari debent fratres in labore manuum, certis iterum horis in
lectione divina.' vina.'

[14] The _horae canonicae_ are the _Nocturnae vigiliae_, _Matutinae_,
_Prima_, _Tertia_, _Sexta_, _Nona_, _Vespera_, and _Completorium_, and
are taken (c. 16) from a literal interpretation of Ps. cxix. 164: 'S