for her word and waiting for her kiss, the reckoning up of expenses, the
preparation to meet the outlay. On one side you will see a company of
cooks, girded for the onslaught and attacking the meat; there you may
hear the hum of a multitude of weavers. Meanwhile a message is delivered
that her husband and his friends have arrived. The wife, like a swallow,
flies all over the house. She has to see to everything. Is the sofa
smooth? Is the pavement swept? Are the flowers in the cup? Is dinner
ready? Tell me, pray, amid all this, is there room for the thought
of God?"

Such was Roman married life as it appeared to Jerome. The very duties
and blessings that we consider the glory of the family he despised. I
will return to his views later, but it is interesting to note the
absence at this period, of the modern and true idea that God may be
served in the performance of household and other secular duties. Women
fled from such occupations in those days that they might be religious.
The disagreeable fact of Peter's marriage was overcome by the assertion
that he must have washed away the stain of his married life by the blood
of his martyrdom. Such extreme views arose partly as a reaction from and
a protest against the dominant corruption, a state of affairs in which
happy and holy marriages were rare.



_The Spread of Monasticism in Europe_

Much more might be said of monastic life in Rome, were it not now
necessary to treat of the spread of monasticism in Europe. There are
many noble characters whom we ought to know, such as Ambrose, one of
Christendom's greatest bishops, who led a life of poverty and strict