what it was.

The time is about 418 A.D.; the place, a monastery in Bethlehem, near
the cave of the Nativity. In a lonely cell, within these monastic walls,
we shall find the man we seek. He is so old and feeble that he has to be
raised in his bed by means of a cord affixed to the ceiling. He spends
his time chiefly in reciting prayers. His voice, once clear and
resonant, sinks now to a whisper. His failing vision no longer follows
the classic pages of Virgil or dwells fondly on the Hebrew of the Old
Testament. This is Saint Jerome, the champion of asceticism, the
biographer of hermits, the lion of Christian polemics, the translator of
the Bible, and the worthy, brilliant, determined foe of a dissolute
society and a worldly church. Although he spent thirty-four years of his
life in Palestine, I shall consider Jerome in connection with the
monasticism of the West, for it was in Rome that he exercised his
greatest influence. His translation of the Scriptures is the Vulgate of
the Roman church, and his name is enrolled in the calendar of her
saints. "He is," observes Schaff "the connecting link between the
Eastern and Western learning and religion."

By charming speech and eloquent tongue Jerome won over the men, but
principally the women, of Rome to the monastic life. So powerful was his
message when addressed to the feminine heart, that mothers are said to
have locked their daughters in their rooms lest they should fall under
the influence of his magnetic voice. It was largely owing to his own
labors that he could write in after years: "Formerly, according to the
testimony of the apostles, there were few rich, few noble, few powerful
among the Christians. Now, it is no longer so. Not only among the
Christians, but among the monks are to be found a multitude of the wise,
the noble and the rich."