entirely aside from religion had taken refuge behind the only walls
which at this period were secure.

Overlook this as we may, forget as we may the demoralization and
ignorance of the inferior clergy, the simony and the vices of the
prelates, the coarseness and avarice of the monks, judging the Church of
the thirteenth century only by those of her sons who do her the most
honor; none the less are these the anchorites who flee into the desert
to escape from wars and vices, pausing only when they are very sure that
none of the world's noises will interrupt their meditations. Sometimes
they will draw away with them hundreds of imitators, to the solitudes of
Clairvaux, of the Chartreuse, of Vallombrosa, of the Camaldoli; but even
when they are a multitude they are alone; for they are dead to the world
and to their brethren. Each cell is a desert, on whose threshold they
cry

O beata solitudo.
O sola beatitudo.

The book of the Imitation is the picture of all that is purest in this
cloistered life.

But is this abstinence from action truly Christian?

No, replied St. Francis. He for his part would do like Jesus, and we may
say that his life is an imitation of Christ singularly more real than
that of Thomas à Kempis.

Jesus went indeed into the desert, but only that he might find in prayer
and communion with the heavenly Father the inspiration and strength