to each other not to be deprived of mutual succor; and the hills offer them a protection against the rigors of the season. The interior of their houses is divided into little cells, into which each member is allowed to take nothing but the books of the law, the prophets, hymns, and other works of this nature. The Therapeutæ receive among them females advanced in age, who have lived in a state of celibacy. At the rising of the sun they say prayers to obtain the blessing of a happy day; when the sun sets they pray again, that their souls discharged of the weight of exterior things, may become more worthy to be elevated to the pure truth. The time from morning till night is filled by meditation on the books of the law; they consider them as a living being, the precepts of which serve the body, while the allegorical, or interior meaning, serves the soul. The most ancient of their sect have left them many commentaries on the allegories. They endeavor to increase these in the same spirit, adding to them hymns of their own composition, always in honor of God, and in solemn and serious rhythm. During six days the The Therapeutæ do not leave their dwellings, but the seventh day they meet in a public assembly, to communicate their reflections. women are separated from the common room, following the custom of the Jews, by a partition, which permits them to hear all that is said, without being seen. The sobriety of the Therapeutæ surpasses all that is related of the Pythagoreans; they take every day and after the setting of the sun, but one meal, composed of bread, some roots and salt. They often remain many days without taking any food whatever. The most singular of their feasts is the one which happens every seventh year; the fraternal banquet does not alter in its habitual solemnities, but women take part in it, and the festival is terminated by choirs with a sacred dance. These choirs have for their object to recall the ancient dance on the banks of the Red Sea, after the deliverance of the children of Israel. They form also a living image of the choirs and celestial harmonies." The Buddhists in India had their monasteries filled with men who practised the most severe penance, and lived a life of the most rigorous poverty. And even at the present day oriental Asia is covered with monasteries, of which PP. Huc and Gabet have given a most interesting description, in their travels in Tartary and Thibet. What does all this prove, but that certain souls are so constituted that the common life and objects of men have no attractions for them; they look for nobler modes of being and a more spiritual life, and say "Arise and fly The reeling Faun, the sensual feast. Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die." * Zoroaster, Confucius, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Zeno, Buddha, stand out as types of this class of souls. The history and increase of these privileged souls under the influence of Christianity, is a point that will be treated of hereafter. We have said that this class is a numerous one, and surely it was so among the civilized hea * Tennyson. then nations; and we add, that this class of persons is large, and larger here in the United States than in any other Protestant country. The reasons and proofs of this will be found in the next chapter. VI. Continuation. "And 'tis the worst despair to know, How many a heart is slowly breaking." STERLING. HERE is a large class of persons in the THERE United States who look for and seek a more spiritual and earnest life. There is scarcely an American family which will not testify to the truth of this statement, not only as a present fact but as a part of its history, by the efforts of some one or more of its members to realize such a life. One might almost say that this desire, after a more spiritual life, is one of the chief characteristics of the American people. |