a black robe.  Fasting was observed at least three days a week, and meat was strictly forbidden.  Respecting contact with women Dom Guigo says:  “Under no circumstances whatever do we allow women to set foot within our precincts, knowing as we do that neither wise man, nor prophet, nor judge, nor the entertainer of God, nor the sons of God, nor the first created of mankind, fashioned by God’s own hands, could escape the wiles and deceits of women.”

Blistering and bleeding, as well as fasting, were employed to control evil impulses.  On the whole, the austerities were as severe as human nature in that wild and cold region could endure.  Yet the prosperity that rewarded the piety and labors of the Carthusian monks proved more than a match for their rigorous discipline, and in the middle of the thirteenth century we read charges of laxity and disorder.

The Carthusians settled in England in the twelfth century, and had a famous monastery in London, since called the Charterhouse.  The order was in many respects the most successful attempt at reform, but as has been said, “the whole order, and each individual member, is like a petrifaction from the Middle Ages.”  Owing to its extremely solitary ideal and its severe discipline, it was unfitted to secure extensive control, or to gain a permanent influence upon the rapidly-developing European nations.  Its chief contributions to modern civilization were made by the gift of noble men who passed from the seclusion of the cell into the active life of the world, thus practically proving that the monks’ greatest usefulness was attained when loyalty to their vows yielded to a broader ideal of Christian character and service.

Thus the months passed into years and the years into centuries.  Man was slowly working out his salvation.  Painfully, laboriously he emerged out of barbarism into the lower forms of civilization; wearily he trudged on his way toward the universal kingdom of righteousness and peace.

There were many other attempts at reform which may not even be mentioned, but one character deserves brief consideration,—­Bernard of Clairvaux,—­the fairest flower of those corrupt days.  The order to which he belonged was the Cistercians, so named because their mother house was at Citeaux (Latin, Cistercium), in France.  Its members are sometimes called the “White Monks,” because of their white tunics.  Their buildings, with their bare walls and low rafters, were a rebuke to the splendid edifices of the richer orders.  Austere simplicity characterized their churches, liturgy and habits.  Gorgeousness in decoration and ostentation in public services were carefully avoided.  They used no pictures, stained glass or images.  Once a week they flogged their sinful bodies.  Only four hours’ sleep was allowed.  Seeking out the wildest spots and most rugged peaks they built their retreats, beautiful in their simplicity and furnishing some of the finest examples of monastic