allowed a small garden as their only place of recreation; and their only relief from prayer was the liberty of rearing a few herbs. Some of these recluses were females. Helyot gives a curious account of the ceremony, used in the devoting a female to perpetual seclusiona. One of the most celebrated of these was the Theatine Order of the HERMITAGE, established at Naples by Ursula Benincasa.—Their whole life was a continued scene of prayer. There was an order of nuns, too, called the "SoLITARIES of ST. PETER of ALCANTARA," which was instituted by Cardinal Barberini. They kept almost perpetual silence, except to themselves; they were waited upon by temporal maidservants, to whom they never spoke; they went barefoot: wore no linen; and occupied themselves in spiritual exercises; -each nun believing herself to be Sponsa Christi. The only institution that bears any resemblance to that of nuns, among the ancients, was the order of the VESTAL VIRGINS; whose office it was to watch the sacred fire in the temple of Vesta. They were admitted at ten years of age: and their period of service was thirty years: after which they were per R Having been favoured with the copy of an invitation to see a Nun profess (in Italy), I send it to you, my dear Lelius; since it may be considered a curiosity, perhaps, in your retired village. IL MARCHESE E MARCHESA DI S. IPPOLITO. Riverendole Divotamente Le Pregano Onorarli di horo Presenza La Mattina de' 28: Del Corrente Aprile, 1813. NELLA CHIESA, DEL MONISTERO DELLE SACRA STIMMATE Ne 'l Parlatorio di Detto Monistero D. ROSALIA SARZANA Fare la sua sollenne professione mitted to marry. The first ten years were devoted to acquiring a knowledge of their duties:-the second ten years to practising them :—and the last ten years to the teaching of novices. They were held in the highest degree of veneration; and enjoyed many privileges. In the island of Lipari, there are orders of nuns, who devote themselves to a life of celibacy, and yet live with their parents, and mix in general society. In the city of Aix there was a convent, near the residence of Count Kleist, in which hospitality was extended to strangers of whatever sex or circumstances; and from which medicine was sent to the poor. The nuns of this convent were appropriately called the SISTERS OF MERCY. In some parts of India a, too, there are communities of nuns. -Among the most remarkable of Eastern saints was MARY the EGPYTIAN.-After a youth of irregularity, she retired to the desert beyond Jordan, where she passed a life of such austerity and seclusion, that for seven and forty years she did not see a single human being.—At length she was discovered by Zosimus. This holy man administered to her the Eucharist, and soon after departed. On his return to her solitude, the next year, he traced an inscription on the sand, by which he learnt, that Mary expected to die on the day she had received the sacrament: and that she wished him to bury and to pray for her.-The body had wasted; but the bones remained. Zosimus performed the melancholy office, that Mary had assigned to him. The BASIILIANS wore no linen, ate no flesh, and cultivated the earth with their own hands: the CAPUCHINS walked barefoot, and shaved their heads: and the CARMELITES, presuming to trace their origin to the prophet Elias, debarred themselves from ever possessing property. They never tasted animal food; they habituated themselves to manual labour; were a Thevenot, iii. 61. constantly engaged in oral or mental prayer; and continued in religious silence from the hour of vespers to the third portion of the succeeding day. The law, forbidding the use of meat, was, in some degree, mitigated by the Popes Eugene and Pius in consequence of which, and a few other regulations, this order divided into two, under the names of moderate and barefooted Carmelites. The BENEDICTINES always walked two and two; they never conversed in the refectory; they slept singly in the same dormitory; performed their devotions seven times in a day; and in Lent fasted till the hour of six. They had but a slight covering to their beds; slept in their clothes; and their wardrobe consisted of only two coats, two cowls, and a handkerchief. MALDULENSIANS. The CAMALDOLESE, a branch of the Benedictines, lived for the most part among the wild solitudes of the Apennines; in the bosom of which St. Romuald founded the order of CAOne of the rules of this order enjoined, that their houses should, in no instance, be situated at a less distance, than fifteen miles from a city. The CARTHUSIANS ate no meat, and kept a total silence except at stated periods. The CISTERCIANS, habited in a long white robe, and girt with a wooden girdle, spending the day in labour and in reading, rising to prayers at midnight, and abstaining from meat, milk, and fish, were very powerful in political as well as in religious affairs. The FRANCISCANS professed poverty: yet, by the bounty of the Popes, were amply compensated by papal indulgencies. The DOMINICANS were the most infamous, as well as the most celebrated and powerful, of all the monastic orders. At a St. Dominic invented the inquisition:-he never spoke to a woman, or looked one in the face:-and he caused eighty persons to be beheaded, and four hundred to be burnt alive in one day. When his mother was pregnant of this inestimable saint, she dreamed, that she brought forth a dog instead of a child; and that it held in its mouth a torch, with which it set fire to the world; that two suns and three moons appeared; and that meteors and earthquakes announced his nativity. tentive, at all times, to their secular interests, there was not a crime, of which they were not guilty, nor a meanness, to which they would not stoop, in order to augment their influence, or enlarge their possessions. Difference of opinion they stigmatised as heresy; and fraud, treachery, and hypocrisy, never ceased to persecute, under the assumed motives of religious zeal. These orders, much as they belied the meek spirit of their Master, base as many of their followers became, in common with the CORDELIERS, seldom failed to fix upon the most beautiful spots, on which to erect their monasteries, convents, and hermitages. In Italy they neglected not to use their privilege of selection: almost every religious house, therefore, in that country, was delightfully situated. Who but would cast his pomp away, To take his staff and amice grey, The order of GILBERTINES, founded by St. Gilbert in 1148, consisted entirely of married persons, who were divided by a wall. The men observed the rules of St. Benedict; the women those of St. Augustin. The order of CELESTINS was established by Peter de Meuron, a Neapolitan of mean extraction, who being afterwards advanced to the Pontificate, under the title of Celestin V., resigned the papal chair, from a fear, that he was unequal to its duties. The members of this order, of which there were upwards of twenty monasteries in France, and ninety in Italy, wore shirts of serge; and ate no flesh. They rose two hours after midnight to matins; and their habit consisted of a capuche, a white gown, and a black scapulary. But there were some monks who performed no manual service whatever; who even renounced * How contrary to the injunctions of Hieronymus! Ignominia omnium sacerdotum est propriis studere divitiis."—Ep. ad Nep. de Vit. Mon. b Warton. bodily action; giving themselves up entirely to prayer, meditation, and the contemplation of heavenly things. Hence they were called HESYCHASTES. Isidore of Seville, on the contrary, was accustomed to say, that it was not only the duty of a monk to work with his mind, but with his hands. He therefore read three hours in every day, and worked six. The monks of ABYSSINIA devote most of their time to the cultivation of their gardens, which supply them with their principal sustenance. The monasteries of Turkey are generally situated in retired mountainous districts; in deep valleys, and on rocky precipices. There were a vast number of monasteries once in China: but they were suppressed by one of the emperors, on the principle, that they encouraged idleness 2. "Our ancestors," says the Chinese ordinance, "held it as a maxim, that if there was a man or a woman, that was idle, somebody in the empire must, in consequence, suffer either hunger or cold." The HERMITAGES near the city of Nantz, command fine views of that city and neighbourhood, through which the Loire winds in many a graceful curve. The hermitage of MOUNT SERRATO, in the island of Elba, stands in the midst of rocks, rugged and stupendous; wild and solitary; beneath a cloudless sky, well calculated to cheat memory of its cares; and to raise the soul to the exercise of some of its noblest and most sacred faculties. His The hermitage of Friburg is situate in a wild and awful solitude. On one side of a rock JOHN DE PRE, assisted by his valet-de-chambre, hollowed out several apartments, and there resided for the space of five-and-twenty years. garden was with infinite difficulty scooped out of the solid rock, and watered with the stream flowing from two or three fountains, which welled from the bowels of the mountains. Once a week he was supplied with provisions; for which he ferried over the Sane in a small boat, that he had procured a Du Halde, c. ii. p. 497.--Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws, b. vii. c. 6. |