ext day the owner of
the ax fell into the water, and the story goes that Benedict walked out
on the water and brought the man in on his shoulders. We who do not
believe that the age of miracles has passed, can well understand how
Benedict was an active, agile and strong swimmer, and that through the
natural powers which he evolved by living a sane and simple life, he was
able to perform many feats which peasants round about considered
miraculous. Benedict had what has been called the Builder's Itch. He
found great joy in planning, creating and constructing. He had an eye
for architecture and landscape-gardening. He utilized the materials of
old Roman temples to construct Christian churches, and from the same
quarry he took stone and built a monastery. A Roman ruin had a lure for
him. It meant building possibilities. He stocked the lake with fish, and
then made catches that rivaled the parable of the loaves and fishes.
Only the loaves of Benedict were made from the wheat he himself raised,
and the people he fed were the crowds who came to hear him preach the
gospel he himself practised--the gospel of work, moderation and the
commonsense exercise of head, hand and heart.

* * * * *

To Benedict came twelve disciples. But further applications becoming
numerous, to meet the pressure Benedict kept organizing them into groups
of twelve, appointing a superior over each group. In order to prove his
sense of equality, he had but eleven besides himself in the monastery.
He recognized that leadership was a necessity; but the clothes he wore
were no better than, and the food he ate no different from, what the
others had. Yet to enforce discipline, rules were made and instant
obedience was exacted. Benedict took his turn at waiting on the table
and doing the coarsest tasks.

Were it not for the commonsense methods of life, and the element of
human service, the Christian monastery and probably Christianity itself
would not have survived. The dogma of religion was made acceptable by
blending it with a service for humanity. And even to this day the
popular plan of proving the miracles of the Old Testament to have been
actual occurrences is to point to the schools, hospitals and orphan
asylums that Christian people have provided.

In the efforts of Benedict to combine the life of unselfish service with
intellectual appreciation of classic literature, he naturally was
misunderstood. Several times he cam