spent the greater part of their life in warfare and in managing the affairs of state, to retire at length and finish their days in one of the monasteries. Though thus retired from the world, they would be far from losing their influence. The young king would naturally consult his father in cases of emergency; the youthful warriors would take counsel with those who had been the leaders of a former generation, and this would be in many instances almost the same as taking counsel with the abbot and bishop, so that the influence of the Church would be very powerful indeed. How much in this way it moderated violent passions, and promoted the cause of justice and goodness, it is not easy for us now to estimate; but the Church which has left such an excellent record as a missionary organization, and in which the Word of God was so much studied and honoured and prized, cannot have been other than a great power for goodness. We shall hereafter see how it promoted art and learning and civilization to an extent that we would never have imagined if we only thought of the barbarism and lawlessness which overspread the country at a later age.
