AN IRISH MONASTERY By Clifton Johnson WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR COMING IN FROM THE FIELDS N one of the lower ridges ΟΝ of the Knockmealldown Mountains in southern Ireland, overlooking the valley of the Blackwater, dwells a mediæval community of Irish monks. They have separated themselves from the world with all its turmoil and jealousies and follies, and on the quiet of their lonely mountain-top they spend their allotted days in prayer and in peaceful pastoral employment, no longer laboring selfishly, but for the good of the whole brotherhood. I often heard of them in my Irish touring, and at length I decided to make a pilgrimage to their abode. I reached Cappoquin, the railroad station nearest the monastery, in the middle of a warm May forenoon. Mount Melleray, the home of the monks, was three miles back among the hills, and I walked thither, at first following a foot-path across the fields, and then a narrow lane that was bordered much of the way by high banks and walls overgrown with furze full of yellow flower-clusters. Along the horizon, on ahead, loomed the blue, serrated ridge of the Knockmealldown Mountains. The monastery, on one of their lesser northern heights, consists of a good-sized group of substantial stone buildings with a slender-spired church in the midst. The quiet of the hamlet when I entered it savored almost of desertion, and I, half fancying there was something uncanny about the place, was tempted to turn back. But the wide door of the main building stood open, and I went in. One of the monks"the Brother Porter" was his official title-greeted me pleasantly, and was my guide in a leisurely ramble through the buildings, and my instructor as to the ways of the community. He was a gray, elderly man, in a coarse black, hooded gown. About his waist he wore a leather girdle, and on his feet white stockings and rude, low shoes. All the other monks were dressed in the same general style, except that certain of them wore white gowns with black scapulas. These white-garbed monks were the elders, or, as they were called among themselves, the "fathers," of the order. The institution in its origin dates back to 1833, when a group of Irish monks was expelled for political reasons from the Cistercian monastery at Mount Melleray in France. They returned penniless to their native country, and a nobleman living in the valley of the Blackwater took pity on them and gave them a tract of wild land here among the hills. They at once set to work with their own hands to reclaim it. For many years the community was so poverty-stricken that it had a hard struggle for existence, but in time it grew prosperous and independent. The land as the monks found it was a barren heath full of stones. They laboriously dug out the stones, carted them off to be used on the roads or for building purposes, and made the land productive by subsoiling. The task of reclaiming still goes on, and I saw one of the fields where the monks had been recently at work. They had brought the stones to the surface in such quantities that the earth was hidden by them, and the field looked like the dumping place of refuse from a quarry. It seemed impossible that such a field could be of any use for agriculture. Certainly, if the monks place any value on their time, the labor involved must far exceed in cost the worth of the land when the process is completed. But I suppose they rejoice in difficulties to overcome, and the hardship brings heaven nearer. About seventy members at present make up the Mount Melleray brotherhood. It is not often there are so few, but the monastery has been depopulated by a recent exodus to establish a new colony. Several branches own this for their parent community, including one in the United States at Dubuque, Iowa. The Cistercians were a very powerful order during the Middle Ages, and in the thirteenth century they had nearly two thousand abbeys in the various countries of Europe Among those in Britain were Tintern, Furness, and Melrose, familiar to tourists now as beautiful ruins. Prosperity proved fatal, for as the monks waxed rich they became indolent and deteriorated morally, and the result was that the order speedily decayed and waned until only remnants were left. These Irish monks, with their stony land to subdue and with the memory of their earlier poverty and struggle for existence still fresh, seem to be trying to realize the order's original simplicity. The main tenets of the religion as exemplified by them are separation from the world, longhoured daily devotions, and strict habits of silence and humility. All personal wealth at the time of joining and all the products of the industry of individual members are turned into the community coffers. They work for the common good, and their thoughts dwell on things eternal, or are supposed to. They never speak save when it is absolutely necessary, and even then the ordinary members must do so by medium or by permission of one of the three superiors-the abbot, the prior, or the sub-prior. The only two members not bound by the rules of silence are the brother porter, who communicates with visitors, and the "procurator" or housekeeper, who is privileged to speak to any one when there is occasion. The usual method of communication is by signs, and words are employed only as a last resort. The monks pay no attention to visitors. The weakness of the flesh may result in a sidelong glance or two; but, in theory, the world is naught to them, and so long as you do not actually interfere they go their appointed ways unconcerned whatever you may do. If Most members join the order between the ages of twenty and forty. Candidates beyond twoscore seldom meet with favor, because it is believed that a man is by then too old and fixed in his habits and ideas to learn the ways of the brotherhood. They accept no one rashly or in haste. To begin with, the applicant stays for three days at the monastery as a guest. satisfied with what he sees and learns in these three days, he becomes a "postulant " for three months, and his partial adoption is symbolized by a cloak which he wears over his ordinary worldly garments. After three months' experience, if he continues desirous of going on, he dons a special habit more monkly than he has worn hitherto, and for two years is a "novice," sharing much of the community life, but not yet taking part in all the exercises. At the end of that interval the man who still yearns for complete monkhood takes "simple vows," and enters on a final probationary period of three years. This completed, provided the monks are satisfied with the novitiate's character and are convinced of his sincerity, he may take solemn vows and enter on the full duties and joys of the order. So far as possible, the monks supply their own bodily needs-raise their own food, erect their own buildings, and do their own farm work and housework, even to making bread and washing clothes. The last-named task is done by steam power, and is not as arduous an undertaking as it might be. The wash is hung out to dry on lines in a grassy area near the church. In one corner of this area is the monks' burying-ground, where are several high stone crosses commemorating deceased abbots, and numerous low iron crosses marking the resting-places of the humbler members of the brotherhood. The monks make their own clothing and shoes, and they grow on their own sheep all the wool used in their garments. The only process consigned to outsiders in the transformation of the wool into clothing is the weaving. This is done in a neighboring mill, but the monks hope soon to run a loom on their own premises. Their greatest lack is skilled mechanics, and they are always glad to have such join their number. They have a large garden where they raise vegetables and small fruits, and in the fields they grow potatoes, oats, turnips, and mangels; and they have a herd of cows, a flock of sheep, and a number of horses. They are not able to do all the work of the place unaided, and they keep constantly employed about forty laborers, whom they pay from nine to twelve shillings a week. Half a century ago wages in the region were only a sixpence a day, but conditions have much improved since, and the peasantry are decidedly better fed, better clothed, and better housed. Practically everything raised is consumed on the place. For income they depend on chance sums donated to them, on summer lodgers, and on their school, which rarely numbers less than one hundred, and which stands in high repute among such of the Catholic gentry as desire an ecclesiastical education for their sons. Besides these aristocratic pupils the monks teach the ragged, barefooted children of the mountain, but this is for charity, not gain. A considerable amount comes to the brotherhood from pious persons, residing both near and far, who send ten shillings or a pound when a relative dies, with the request that the holy men of the monastery may say high mass for the repose of the lost one's soul. Another source of income is reforming drunkards. The unfortunates are received into the monastery, and the salutary effect of the seclusion and the religious surroundings, together with the fact that their liquor is taken from them gradually, works a cure, at least for the time being. Two large buildings are reserved for guests, one for men and one for women, and in the summer there are frequently lodgers in the boarding-houses, to the number of fifty or more. The few days or weeks spent at the monastery, with the accompanying confessions and sacraments, the quiet, and the simple, wholesome living, bring genuine spiritual refreshment to the devout Catholic, and many persons come year after year. There are Protestant visitors, too, but these usually are impelled by curiosity, though even among them are certain ones who have no other motive than the desire to retire from the world for a season. The monks make no charge for their services, and when guests go they pay for their board whatever they choose, be it little or much. Two in the morning is the monks' time for rising, save on Sundays and holy days, when it is an hour earlier. As soon as they are up and dressed the monks file down from their dormitory to the church for matins. Religious exercises are held in the church at frequent intervals all day. Shortly after matins comes "lords," at sunrise "prime," at eight o'clock" thirdat," at eleven "sext," at two in the afternoon "none," at five "vespers," at eight "compren," and then they retire. Not all can attend this whole list of eight services, for the monks are workers as well as prayers, and other duties keep some of them away from the church much of the day; but every one is present at the first three and the last. Following the religious exercises in the small hours of the morning the monks. pray privately and read and meditate until "prime." After "prime" they listen to a chapter from the Bible and to an exhortation from the superior. At about seven o'clock they assemble for a "collation." It seemed to me they must by then have sharp appetites, after being up since one or two in the morning. The dining-room, like all the monks' apartments, is immaculately clean, and substantial in all its appointments, yet at the same time is severely plain. It is a high, pillared room, appropriately dim, with a crucifix on the wall at the far end. one side a lofty pulpit, overhung by a sounding-board, rises well toward the ceiling, and around the borders of the apartment are lines of long, bare tables. On |