But there was no part of their policy, of whatever nature, that procured to them a greater or juster credit than their cultivation of learning and useful arts:  for, if the monks contributed to the fall of science in the Roman Empire, it is certain that the introduction of learning and civility into this Northern world is entirely owing to their labors.  It is true that they cultivated letters only in a secondary way, and as subsidiary to religion.  But the scheme of Christianity is such that it almost necessitates an attention to many kinds of learning.  For the Scripture is by no means an irrelative system of moral and divine truths; but it stands connected with so many histories, and with the laws, opinions, and manners of so many various sorts of people, and in such different times, that it is altogether impossible to arrive to any tolerable knowledge of it without having recourse to much exterior inquiry:  for which reason the progress of this religion has always been marked by that of letters.  There were two other circumstances at this time that contributed no less to the revival of learning.  The sacred writings had not been translated into any vernacular language, and even the ordinary service of the Church was still continued in the Latin tongue; all, therefore, who formed themselves for the ministry, and hoped to make any figure in it, were in a manner driven to the study of the writers of polite antiquity, in order to qualify themselves for their most ordinary functions.  By this means a practice liable in itself to great objections had a considerable share in preserving the wrecks of literature, and was one means of conveying down to our times those inestimable monuments which otherwise, in the tumult of barbarous confusion on one hand, and untaught piety on the other, must inevitably have perished.  The second circumstance, the pilgrimages of that age, if considered in itself, was as liable to objection as the former; but it proved of equal advantage to the cause of literature.  A principal object of these pious journeys was Rome, which contained all the little that was left in the Western world of ancient learning and taste.  The other great object of those pilgrimages was Jerusalem:  this led them into the Grecian Empire, which still subsisted in the East with great majesty and power.  Here the Greeks had not only not discontinued the ancient studies, but they added to the stock of arts many inventions of curiosity and convenience that were unknown to antiquity.  When, afterwards, the Saracens prevailed in that part of the world, the pilgrims had also by the same means an opportunity of profiting from the improvements of that laborious people; and however little the majority of these pious travellers might have had such objects in their view, something useful must unavoidably have stuck to them; a few certainly saw with more discernment, and rendered their travels serviceable to their country by importing other things besides miracles and legends.  Thus a communication was opened between this remote island and countries of which it otherwise could then scarcely have heard mention made; and pilgrimages thus preserved that intercourse amongst mankind which is now formed by politics, commerce, and learned curiosity.