It is when we draw
together that we are strong, and strongest when we are labouring
shoulder to shoulder for some common object, and that no mean and
sordid one; it is then that we best find deliverance from our self-
deception and most inveterate delusions, whilst living in the light
of other's eyes, and subjected to the influence and control of a
healthy and well-instructed public opinion.
In the thirteenth century (and I shall as much as possible confine
myself to the limits of that period), a monastery meant what we now
understand it to mean--viz., the abode of a society of men or women
who lived together in common--who were supposed to partake of common
meals; to sleep together in one common dormitory; to attend certain
services together in their common church; to transact certain
business or pursue certain employments in the sight and hearing of
each other in the common cloister; and, when the end came, to be laid
side by side in the common graveyard, where in theory none but
members of the order could find a resting-place for their bones. When
I say "societies of men and women" I am again reminded that the other
term, "convent," has somehow got to be used commonly in a mistaken
sense. People use the word as if it signified a religious house
tenanted exclusively by women. The truth is that a convent is nothing
more than a Latin name for an association of _persons_ who have
_come together_ with a view to live for a common object and to
submit to certain rules in the ordering of their daily lives.
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