There  must  have  been  in  every  convent  such  times  of  mad-
ness and  revolt,  even  though  the  vital  powers  were  kept  low
with  poor  and  scanty  food.  It  is  not  every  man  who  can  be
thus  changed  into  a  slave  and  a  praying-machine.  The  noblest
souls  must  break  out  from  time  to  time  ;  only  the  ignoble  sink
contentedly  day  by  day  into  lethargic,  passive,  mechanical
discharge  of  the  rules  ;  their  mouths  mechanically  mumble  the
litanies  ;  the  sacred ness  falls  out  of  the  most  holy  acts  and  words
by  reason  of  their  familiarity  ;  they  drop  into  second  childhood
in  the  vigour  and  strength  of  manhood.  If  the  walls  of  the
convent  could  speak,  what  tales  would  they  tell  of  madness  and
despair  and  vain  rage  and  drivelling  idiocy  !  One  thing,  how-
ever, came  to  the  relief  of  these  poor  men  in  every  Order  ;  it  was
the  gradual  relaxation  of  the  Rule,  until,  by  the  Dissolution,
the  laws  of  the  Founder  had  passed  into  forms  and  words,  and
the  House,  enriched  by  benefactions,  had  become  a  pleasant
club,  consisting  of  none  but  gentlemen,  where  certain  light  duties
removed  the  tedium  of  an  idle  life.
For  two  hundred  years  this  House  of  the  Salutation  continued.
There  remains  no  record  of  that  long  period  ;  no  record  at  all.
There  is  no  history  of  those  poor  souls  who  lived  their  dreary
lives  within  its  walls.  The  monks  obeyed  the  Rule  and  died  and
were  forgotten.  Nay,  theyTiad  been  forgotten  since  the  day  when
they  assumed  the  hood.  The  end  of  the  Carthusians  came  in
blood  and  prison  an^  torture  ;  but  that  belongs  to  Tudor  London.
