approach while it fits them for it. Their time is regularly
distributed; one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left
open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades
of listless inactivity. There is a certain task to be performed at
an appropriated hour, and their toils are cheerful, because they
consider them as acts of piety by which they are always advancing
towards endless felicity."

"Do you think," said Nekayah, "that the monastic rule is a more
holy and less imperfect state than any other? May not he equally
hope for future happiness who converses openly with mankind, who
succours the distressed by his charity, instructs the ignorant by
his learning, and contributes by his industry to the general system
of life, even though he should omit some of the mortifications
which are practised in the cloister, and allow himself such
harmless delights as his condition may place within his reach?"

"This," said Imlac, "is a question which has long divided the wise
and perplexed the good. I am afraid to decide on either part. He
that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a
monastery. But perhaps everyone is not able to stem the
temptations of public life, and if he cannot conquer he may
properly retreat. Some have little power to do good, and have
likewise little strength to resist evil. Many are weary of the
conflicts with adversity, and are willing to eject those passions
which have long busied them in vain. And many are dismissed by age
and diseases from the more laborious duties of society. In
monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered, the
weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. Those retreats of
prayer and contemplation have something so congenial to the mind of