Note 3-9 — Chapter III

Gibbon's hypothetical conclusion respecting the effects of self-mortification, and his following historical statement, must be noted as in themselves containing the entire views of the modern philosophies and policies which have since changed the monasteries of Italy into barracks, and the churches of France into magazines. "This voluntary martyrdom must have gradually destroyed the sensibility, both of mind and body; nor can it be presumed that the fanatics who torment themselves, are capable of any lively affection for the rest of mankind. A cruel unfeeling temper has characterized the monks of every age and country."

How much of penetration, or judgment, this sentence exhibits, I hope will become manifest to the reader as I unfold before him the actual history of his faith; but being, I suppose, myself one of the last surviving witnesses of the character of recluse life as it still existed in the beginning of this century, I can point to the portraiture of it given by Scott in the introduction to 'The Monastery' as one perfect and trustworthy, to the letter and to the spirit; and for myself can say, that the most gentle, refined, and in the deepest sense amiable, phases of character I have ever known, have been either those of monks, or of servants trained in the Catholic Faith.