we have, and in about the same proportion. They were trying, the best way they knew, to magnify the good, to make the ideal real, and to gain the approbation of God. In the church they found assistance. There it was, with doors open, day after day; its aisles fragrant with holy associations, as with the incense of the prayers of the saints; its shining altars, its appealing music, its mute assurance of divine nearness. To it they brought their trials, their perplexities, their hopes, their aspirations, their resolutions. It was the house of prayer and the sanctuary of blessing. It was the heart of their life.
IV. THE CLOISTER
Out of the nave, near the south transept, a door opens into the cloister. At the corner, where nave and transept met, is the pedestal which held a bowl for holy water. Here the brothers stopped to dip their fingers and sign their foreheads with
72
