156 SERMON VIL

studious, the afflicted, the penitent aftd the de-*
rout. They afforded support to all the neigh--
bouring poor, and in those days of lawlesar
violence, were extremely useful as places of
refuge and security to the defenceless and the;
wedk. In them too were deposited many of '
those precious remains of antiquity which we
wow peruse with so much delight, and which, '^
liad it no% been for the protection they found
in religious houses, would, in af( probability,
have perished by the hands of those'Li^rbarians
that spread ruin and desolation over Europe,
in these peaceful sanctuaries, the leisure and
tranquillity which the rhonks enjoyed, enabled
them not only to record (however uncouthly)
the .transactions of their own times, but to
transcribe the compositions of former and more
valuable writers. Nor was this *he only ob-
ject of their atteptioh. They foupd time to
cfultivate even some of the finder ;^rts'. Those-
sublime powers of harmony, which have been
this very day so nobly and laudably exerted in

' * . . * *

the cause of the fatherless and th^ widqWa owe
their birth in this country to monastic diligence
and ingenuity. Both the theory and the prac-
tice of music were first studied and taught here,.
