and their institutions on the great world-stage; they likewise fail to make allowance for the peculiar effect of a missionary status. To avoid this fallacy the preceding description of monasticism in England, illustrated copiously from the life of the Grey Friars, needs collateral support from other countries or national ‘provinces’ of that order.
One other province has been described already at some length. The Belgian province, it must be remembered, is in an entirely different condition from the English province. It labours under no financial difficulties (the seven monasteries of the English friars bear a collective debt of about 50,000l.), it has no scarcity of vocations, it suffers not the slightest civic or legislative interference with its manner of life. It may be taken as a typical branch of modern monasticism, and is claimed to be such by its adherents. Yet although it differs considerably in literal fulfilment of the Franciscan rule, in formal discipline and ritual, it will be recognised from the contents of Chapter VII. that it agrees entirely with the English province in the features which are important to the philosophical observer.
A slight allusion has also been made to the condition of the Franciscan Order in Ireland. So unsatisfactory is it, from a monastic point of view, that the Roman authorities for many years were bent on extinguishing it. Ireland, the most Catholic and superstitious country in the civilised world, is the
