merited, deserved, fairly EARNED (for that is the true meaning of
those words), and therefore must come. Conceive him seeing around
him estates destroyed, farms burnt, ladies and gentlemen, his own
friends and relations, reduced in an hour to beggary, plundered,
stript, driven off in gangs--I do not choose to finish the picture:
but ask yourselves, would an honourable man wish to bring sons--much
more daughters--into the world to endure that?

Put yourselves in Salvian's place. Forget for a few minutes that you
are Englishmen, the freest and bravest nation upon earth, strong in
all that gives real strength, and with a volunteer army which is now
formidable by numbers and courage--which, did the terrible call come,
might be increased ten times in as many months. Forget all that
awhile; and put yourselves in Salvian's place, the gentleman of Gaul,
while Franks and Goths, Burgunds and Vandals were sweeping, wave
after wave, over that lovely land; and judge him rationally, and talk
as little as possible of his superstition, and as much as possible of
his human feeling, prudence, self-control, and common sense. Believe
me, neither celibacy, nor any other seemingly unnatural superstition
would have held its ground for a generation if there had not been
some practical considerations of common sense to back them. We
wonder why men in old times went into monasteries. The simplest
answer is, common sense sent them thither. They were tired of being
the slaves of their own passions; they were tired of killing, and of
running the chance of being killed. They saw society, the whole
world, going to wrack, as they thought, around them: what could they
do better, than see that their own characters, morals, immortal souls
did not go to wrack with the rest. We wonder why women, especially
women of rank, went into convents; why, as soon as a community of
monks was founded, a community of nuns sprung up near them. The