I quoted. "But you must remember, Janet, even in their days of backsliding the gentlemen of that convent were not idle men. To them you lovers of the classics are indebted for a great deal that you now enjoy. That very monastery of Monte Casino was a sanctuary for Greek and Latin treasures which otherwise would have been lost. You would never have had even those six Fasti of Ovid which you prize so highly, nor the great Englishman Fox, his beloved Idylls of Theocritus, but for these scholarly Benedictines of Monte Casino."

We dwelt on the life of the great founder of the Order, of whom Montalembert says, “At a season of universal desolation and gloom, when the whole world was steeped in heresy, schism, and divisions, a solitary monk created a centre of supernatural virtue, and illuminated it with a splendor which shone during ten ages over regenerated Europe."*

The beautiful love which existed between St Benedict and his sister St. Scholastica, and the touching story told by St. Gregory of their last interview, interested Venitia deeply. St. Scholastica's convent was five miles distant from Monte Casino, and once a year she always visited her brother. He would not let her visit the monastery, but went out to meet her at a place appointed, and there they passed the day in sweet talk on their mutual faith and great hope.

When she knew she was dying she made her people carry her to the place of meeting, and her brother came to her. The day seemed short to the dying woman ; and as the setting sun sank behind the beautiful hills, she clung with mortal yearning to her dearly loved brother, whose blessed words of comfort during the day had given

Les Moines d'Occident, par Montalembert.

her so much healing strength. She besought him to stay until morning with her, and talk again to her of the happiness of that other life which lay beyond the dread, dark sea of anguish, called Death,- that sea which she was so soon to cross alone.

But the rule of his Order, established by himself, forbade a monk to pass the night away from his monastery. He knew it was his beloved sister's last request, but he steadfastly, though sorrowfully, refused.

Then the poor, expiring woman, seeing her entreaties were in vain, lay her trembling hands on a table, rested her face in them, weeping bitterly, and besought Almighty God to interpose in her behalf. Straightway the heavens seemed opened, and there came pouring down such a flood of rain with fierce thunder and sharp lightning, that no man or beast dare venture out in it. "God forgive you, sister!" said St. Benedict. have you done?"

"What

"I asked a favor of you," she replied, with reproachful tenderness, "and you refused me. I asked it of God, and he has granted it to me."

All night long the holy brother and sister held solemn vigil together, and his strong words became as an armor of might to the feeble woman whose soul and body were having their last great battle. At dawn they parted, not in tears, but with faces that shone like angels; and as St. Benedict kissed his sister, she said,

"My brother, the parting will not be long. We shall soon meet again."

Three days after, she breathed her last breath in great mortal anguish, but in holy peace of spirit; and her sorrowing brother, who was praying at the time in his tower at Monte Casino, believed he saw her pure soul ascend to heaven in the form of a dove.

Only a few weeks passed and it was as St. Scholastica had said; the parting was not long, for the monks of Monte Casino were mourning their great founder's death.

Brother and sister sleep together under the magnificent high altar, rich in precious marbles, of the superb Church of Monte Casino; and the tender beauty of their love steals gently down through thirteen centuries with a light as pure as their great virtue.

"Ah yes," said Janet, as I finished this sweet old story; "and St. Gregory, their biographer, gives a beautiful reason for the granting of St. Scholastica's prayer, Justo valde judicio illa plus potuit quæ amplius amavit, By a just judgment, indeed, she who was the more loving was the more powerful.’

6

"Was St. Bernard, the stern judge of poor Abelard, a Benedictine?" asked Venitia.

"The great Abbot of Clairvaux," I answered, “belonged to a reformed Benedictine order, the Cistercians, but his followers were sometimes called Bernardins. He lived six hundred years after St. Benedict. St. Benedict's period was 480 to 543; while the apostle of the illfated Second Crusade, St. Bernard, flourished from 1091 to 1153."

"St. Bernard's period," said Janet, " was also famous for many new religious orders. The mendicant friars sprang up then. St. Dominic, and St. Francis of Assissium, the founders of the Dominican and Franciscan brotherhoods, were contemporaries of the all-powerful St. Bernard."

"Lord Lindsay, in his Christian Art," I remarked, 66 says that during this period, extending from St. Benedict's death up even so far as 1400, Christianity found its chief expression in architecture; the spirit of Faith,

reigning supreme, gave utterance to its grandest voice, its symphonies in stone."*

We talked all night, and Janet told us of quite an exciting adventure she once had when crossing this same Mont Cenis with Venitia and a young brother, when they were children.

* Lord Lindsay's Christian Art, Letter I. Vol. II.

JANET'S STORY.

ATE one afternoon in January, about fifteen years ago, said Janet, "I received a letter telling me of my sister Mary's dangerous illness. I was at Geneva and she at Turin. The letter was from her physician; it bade me come immediately; even then I might not find her alive.

"I had the two youngest children with me, - my poor little brother Ernst, a child of seven, and Venitia, who was not more than five; they could not be left in Geneva, for I knew no one there to trust them with, therefore they had to go with me. I had only just time to hurry down to the Diligence Bureau to see what seats I could get. Of course, I found the coupé engaged; for when one is in a disagreeable position, the difficulties that spring up on all sides can be named Legion. There were only two seats to be had in the whole diligence, and they were in the interior.

"I could not help hesitating, used as I was to facing disagreeable things; for it is so unpleasant for a woman to travel alone in such a place. But what alternative had I? 'Go,' said Courage, and trust to the children for protection.'

"The diligence was being arranged while I stood in the office talking about the seats with the courteous clerk,