§ 49

There are many “practical” schemes being initiated. My dream leads me now into matters not generally called “practical,” but are necessary to a great nation. We all know (any way), who have read History what we owe to-day to the Monastic system, which, with all its abuses, did save learning. Monasteries were the Cabinets of tradition, without which we might now be barbarians, and it was by no means all for good they were suppressed. To Henry VIII. is not due all the mischief which Cromwell completed. The lands belonging to the Church were regarded with envy by the State before the coming of those two powerful autocrates. Every one knows that, but every one does not realise the debt we owe to a concentrated life going on amid war and rapine. Good things, if once they have been proved good and useful, are apt to crop up again. If not used exactly as they were, if the principle which started them no longer prevails, if their recurrence is not on the lines of what was called the “religious life,” the results they achieved may be copied in a New Age and under a fresh inspiration.