Of  the  repute  which  the  House  bore,  and  of  its  pious
and  charitable  deeds,  there  is  no  evidence,  except,  indeed,
that  the  King^s  Commissioners  in  their  report  testify
curtly  and  coarsely  to  the  unsullied  lives  of  the  sisters.
We,  learning  no  ill  of  them,  may  surely  follow  the  Chris-
tian dictate,  and  believe  that  they  lived  rightly  according
to  their  light.  Whatever  may  in  this  age  be  thought  of
Monasticism,  and  however  nobler  it  may  seem  to  us  that
the  battle  of  life  should  be  fought  rather  than  fled  from
to  the  cloister,  it  must  yet  be  conceded  that  in  ruder
times,  now  happily  long  passed  away,  there  was  need  of
these  refuges  throughout  the  land,  and  that  as  insti-
tutions they  were  necessary  before  the  advent  of  others
which,  in  the  development  of  civilization,  have  taken  the
place  of  the  Religious  Houses.  So  here  we  would  think
''  of  the  dead   nought  but  what  is  good.^^     We  would


66  REC0BD8   OF   BUOEINGHAMSHIBE.
