who had been led through the secret treasure-houses of nature, and had listened to the ceaseless hymn of praise which the creatures of God sang as they followed the immutable laws set down for them by their Lord-he, above all, dared not stand still nor refuse the tribute of his voice. He would not be an alien among his brethren, the children of God. With these thoughts, he slowly followed the crowd as it filled the little church, and broke out again into strains of solemn gladness, singing:

"Now dost thou dismiss thy servant in peace, O Lord, according to thy word; for my eyes have seen thy salvation."

The song grew fainter, and the multitude seemed to dissolve before his eyes, as Robert, standing up, gazed around him. Everywhere the primeval forest hemmed him in; the river flowed at his feet, clogged with mossy boulders, and fringed with delicate fern; the squirrels rattled in the trees with a sound like castanets; and the silvery disk of the moon was just visible over the tree-tops. The young wanderer knew that he had slept for many hours; but he awoke a new being. Reverently he gazed upon the silent landscape, to which a fellowship beyond the expression of human tongues now bound him; and, as he repeated slowly the prayers that he had said at his mother's knee in the old Norman homestead, he felt that at last his life's work had been pointed out to him. He had read the pages of a book more wonderful than the romances of troubadours, the tales of the Minnesingers, and even the chronicles of olden abbeys; he had heard how the world was bound by a chain of song, never ceasing, never wearying; and henceforth his frail human life must not mar this awe-inspiring harmony; his heart must throb with the world's

heart, his voice sing in unison with the great voice of creation. Night passed, and he scarcely slept; morning came, and found him still in his holy rapture. Before long, an Indian approached him-a tall and stately son of the forest, one still uncorrupted by the thinly veiled heathenism of the white "children of the sun." He had never seen a white man, though he had often heard of them. Robert knew a little of some of the Indian tongues, but not that of the newcomer. What with signs and a few words akin to those which the Indian spoke, they gradually made friends; but the red man still gazed upon Robert with an awe not unmixed with terror. He handled his weapons and his garments, touched reverentially his fair and tangled locks, and at intervals drew long breaths of astonishment and admiration. He then led him to the assembly of his tribe, and Robert soon learnt enough of their language to be able to speak fluently with them. He told them how he came there, and spoke to them of the true God; and, though at first they listened quietly, they soon grew grave. They had heard of the cruelty and treachery of white men, who all professed to believe in this true God, and they dared not trust to this teaching.

Then Robert had a happy inspiration. He told them of his dream, and they brightened up at once; this was language such as they loved to hear; these were parables such as they instinctively understood. He told them of his life in Normandy, of his journey across the great salt water, of his longings after a beautiful land of brotherly love, such as had been shown to him in his dream. He asked them to help him in his work for God.

We cannot dwell longer on the details of the story of this settlement in the wilderness, but some things

must be briefly touched upon. In due time, the Indian tribe gave Robert a grant of many miles of land, and he, in return, promised them protection, justice, equality, and peace. One priest at first, then gradually others, came to preach the Gospel; and the path of truth was exceptionally smooth in this strange oasis. Robert called his settlement by a name which few at first could understand-Perpetual Praise. Parts of the forest were cleared; a thriving lumber trade was established; cottages sprang up; many emigrants from fair Normandy flocked in, yet settlers of other lands were all welcomed as brothers; a civilization that was rather that of the monastery than of the factory sprang up, and Indians and whites worshipped God side by side in joy and peace.

Some

As years went by, Robert took an Indian wife, and loved her as faithfully as though she had been the princess of some chivalric romance: he had found his ideal at last. times-it was impossible that it should be otherwise-there would be a ripple of adversity over the smooth waters of this pastoral life; crime might throw a shadow on the settlement; but peace was promptly restored, and Robert became known as the justest and most merciful judge for hundreds of miles around. He was the arbiter and referee of every feud, the father of his colony, the terror of evil-doers. Over his house-door-a wide, open-armed porch where his Indian sons, with locks of bronze, played the games of infant Samsons at his feet-was carved in crimson letters this brave motto:

"Work is prayer, work is song." As his years advanced, he grew more thoughtful yet. One idea remained unrealized; and now that the settlement had had a life almost as long as the third of a century, he felt

that it was time to begin the new and crowning work. He negotiat ed with the Benedictine abbeys of France, and held out hopes to them. of the free gift of at least five hundred acres of land for the foundation of a priory of their order, together with a school of missionaries for the Indians, and for the revival of sacred chanta study Robert had greatly at heart. He received very favorable answers and, before he died, he saw the wish. of his heart in a fair way to be accomplished.

The day of the arrival of the first Benedictine monks was a festival throughout the settlement. Indian and European decorations vied with each other; beads, feathers, flags, lanterns of painted birch bark, flowers strewn on the paths, wreaths hung from tree to tree, all represented but poorly the heartfelt enthusiasm of the people. In a few months, the old chant of the church in the early ages echoed through the woods and corn-fields of the New World; the Divine Office was sung in the intervals of agricultural labor; seven times a day did the bells utter their summons to prayer, yet the fields and flocks thrived none the less for this continuous intercession. The boys of red and white race mingled their locks of black and gold, poring over the books of church psalmody; the maidens and matrons joined in from their seats in the body' of the church. The wilderness became populous, great artists came to sketch. the stately figures of the monks and the innocent faces of the choristers as they moved from choir to ploughed field, from school to pasture; curious folks came to visit the little spot of land where a great experiment had been tried and had not failed; musicians came to seek rest for their minds and inspiration for their art; poets came to describe the new Ar

cadia, and holy men to praise God in the temple where such great graces had been conferred.

Robert Maillard began to fear that such publicity would endanger the very perfection which was the theme of admiration, and with redoubled fervor did he pray for his beloved work. As last came a day when he knew that his earthly task was over; like a patriarch among his people, he gathered the heads of the little community around him, and blessed them, exhorting them to persevere in the happy and innocent life of "Perpetual Praise." His wife knelt

at his feet, his sons stood around him, and one of them led by the hand a young child, whose eyes were Indian eyes, but whose skin was nearly as fair as that of her grandfather.

The Benedictine monks stood around Robert's bedside, chanting the Divine Office; but suddenly the dying man raised his hands to hea ven, and, mingling his voice with the song of Compline, called out clearly and joyously, as if in answer to some interior voice: "I come, O Lord! Work has been prayer; be it now song."

In the year of grace 1121, Henry I. was reigning in England. On the sudden death of his brother, William Rufus, he had seized the crown, which devolved by right on the next elder brother, Robert of Normandy, Robert being just then absent in the Holy Land, where, by military exploits of high renown and sweet courtesy of manner, he was winning the hearts of his soldiers and of Christendom. Hearing how things were going in England, he set sail in haste for Normandy; and there calling a fleet together, he steered towards Dover, where the usurper, apprised of his arrival, stood with an army drawn up upon the shore awaiting him. For three days and nights the brothers stood at bay, like two tigers ready to fly at one another's throats, but neither daring to strike the first blow in their fratricidal war, Presently we

He

see gliding high up along the cliffs a venerable figure, clad in priestly garb, and bearing an olive branch in his hand. His name is Anselm. has been roughly handled by Rufus, and has little kindness to expect from his successor. But Anselm heeds not his own interest or his life; he goes boldly forward, and with outstretched hand entreats the brothers to desist from their bloody intent, to exchange the kiss of peace, and settle their quarrel as became men and Christians. They hearkened to the voice of the saintly primate. This was his first service to Henry, and it was quickly followed by others so numerous and so important that the scholarly king, moved partly by gratitude, and partly by a desire to atone for certain of his own and his predecessor's misdemeanors towards the church, resolved, in 1121, to build a

monastery which should be one of the glories of his reign, and bear witness to the end of time to his devout allegiance to the faith. With this view he built the Benedictine Abbey of Reading. It was on so royal a scale, both of magnitude and architectural splendor, that even now, in their utter dilapidation, the fragments of the cyclopean ruins give us no inadequate idea of what it must have been in the days of its strength and glory. The gigantic skeleton walls, as they stand out gaunt and ragged against the sky, resemble rather rocks than the remains of the work of puny human hands. The style was in the massive and lofty Norman Gothic of the period, as may be seen from the few bold arches that have withstood alike the ravages of time, the artillery of Cromwell, and modern depredations. The abbey was one of the wealthiest in the kingdom, and the mitred abbot was counted among the notable authorities of the land. He not only took rank with the highest nobles, but he enjoyed, likewise, many of the supreme prerogatives of royalty; he was privileged to coin money, and to confer the honor of knighthood. He exercised hospitality to kings and princes, and that right royally. King Henry, the founder, was a frequent guest at the monastery with his court, who were entertained there for weeks at a time with regal magnificence. The king was extremely fond of the abbey and the monks, and made it his custom to spend Holy Week there every year. After performing his Paschal duties in company with his family and his court, and passing the solemn week in fasting and prayer, he celebrated the joyful Easter dawn with a festive merriment, in which all the town was invited to join. Bonfires blazed on every surrounding hill, ale ran in the gutters, the poor were clad and fed, and all within reach of

the royal bounty felt the joy of the Paschal alleluia. Queen Adeliza shared her husband's partiality for this lordly monastic retreat, and at various festivals through the year repaired to it, sometimes with her son, sometimes only with her women-inwaiting. When Henry died of overindulgence in his favorite dish of lampreys, at Rouen, he directed that his heart should remain there, but that his body should rest under the roof of his beloved Benedictine abbey. After his demise, it still continued to be a royal residence, and was often frequented by Henry II., who held a parliament there for the first time in 1184—an example which was followed repeatedly in the course of the succeeding reigns; the calm of the cloister offering a fitter atmosphere for grave deliberation to the law-makers than the hall of Westminster, disturbed as it was by courtly intrigues and political agitations. In 1452, Parliament was adjourned to Reading Abbey from Westminster, on account of the sudden outbreak of the plague, and later, in 1466, for the same reason. It was the scene of other meetings not devoid of historical importance. Here the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Heraclius, visited Henry II., and presented him with the keys. of the Holy Sepulchre and the royal banners of the city, in hopes of luring him to undertake another crusade for the deliverance of the holy places.

Henry III. passed more of his time. at Reading Abbey than at any of his own palaces; here he convoked assemblies of the nobles, and received brother princes and European guests. of distinction. It was in the west hall of the monastery that Edward IV. received his fair young queen, Elizabeth Widville. In this same hall Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, who had the regency in the absence of Richard

Cœur de Lion in Palestine, was put upon his trial. Two other ecclesiastical councils were held here in the reign of John. When Richard II., through the intervention of John of Gaunt, was reconciled to his nobles, he chose Reading Abbey as the ground of meeting. So it continued, up to the reign of Henry VIII., the resort of kings, and nobles, and prelates, until that ruthless despoiler passed an act for the suppression of monasteries, and converted the sacred precincts into a palace for his own sole use. The monks were scattered, and their brave and loyal abbot, Hugh Farringdon, having dared to denounce the iniquitous edict and defy the king, was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. With him closes the line of the Benedictine abbots. It is curious to see Henry VIII., after thus uprooting the church in his dominions, plundering her treasure, and persecuting her in every way, leaving a large sum of money in his will for "Masses to be said for the deliverance of his soul." He had made it high treason to hold the doctrine of purgatory, or tó pray for the dead; and the act of saying Mass was punishable with death. He had overturned altars and banished priests; yet, when he came to die himself, he turned, in abject and cowardly fear, towards the church that he had so outraged, and besought her help in his extremity. Speaking of this act of Henry's, which throws such a sinister light on his fanatical hatred to Catholicism, and his violent enforcement of the " reformed religion," as it was styled, Hume, whose statements are as accurate as his views are false, remarks naïvely that it is a proof of the tenacity of superstition on the human mind, and says that it was one amongst so many of "the strange contrarieties of his conduct and temper," that he who had "de

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stroyed those foundations made by his ancestors for the deliverance of their souls," should when it came to be the hour of death "take care to be on the safer side of the question himself." At the time of the dissolution, the revenues in money of this royal abbey did not exceed the small sum of £675 a year. wealth consisted not in accumulated riches, but in lands, and fisheries, and flocks, and herds. Many English sovereigns had bequeathed their dust to the consecrated shelter of Reading Abbey; amongst others, the Empress Matilda, wife of Henry I., and mother of Henry II., had been interred in its vaults. Their ashes found no mercy at the hands of the infuriated fanatics, who seemed bent on erasing from the face of the country every vestige of its ancient faith. The majestic pile, which had wit nessed so many royal marriages, and echoed to the dirges of so many sov ercigns, fell before the cannon of Cromwell, planted on Caversham hill. The beautiful church of S. Thomas à Becket, where the unfortunate Charles I., with a little band of his trusty cavaliers, had halted and knelt in prayer for protection against the mad soldiery before whom they fled, fared no better than the rest. The walls that still exist bear traces at every point of this savage act of vandalism. What the fury of the Roundheads left unfinished the more recent vandals have completed. The ruins have been plundered of every vestige of stone-facing; and those immense blocks that gave the old pile, even in its decay, such an air of imperishable strength and grandeur were, at great cost of labor and money, torn away and carried to Windsor, to serve in building the Poor Knights' Hospital. Some were condemned to the more ignoble use of erecting a bridge over the Wargrave Road. It is difficult