The monastery; The abbot.

O6 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Now let us sit in conclave. That these weeds
Be rooted fiom the vineyard of the church,
That these foul tares he severed from the wheat,
We are, I trust, agreed.-Yet how to do this,
Nor hurt the wholesome crop and tender vine-plants,
Craves good advisement.
TaE REFORMATION.
THE vesper service in the Monastery Church of Saint Mary's was now
over. The Abbot had disrobed himself of his magnificent vestures of ceremony, and resumed his ordinary habit, which was a black gown, worn over
a white cassock, with a narrow scapulary; a decent and venerable dress,
which was calculated to set off to advantage the portly mien of Abbot
Boniface.
In quiet times no one could have filled the state of a mitred Abbot, for
such was his dignity, more respectably than this worthy prelate. He had, no
doubt, many of those habits of self-indulgence which men are apt to acquire
who live for themselves alone. He was vain, nioreover; and when boldly
confronted, had sometimes shown symptoms of timidity, not very consistent
with the high claims which he preferred as an eminent member of the
church, or with the punctual deference which he exacted from his religious
brethren, and all who were placed under his command. But he was hospitable, charitable, and by no means of himself disposed to proceed with
severity against any one. In short, he.would in other times have slumbered
out his term of preferment with as much credit as any other " purple-Abbot,"
who lived easily, but at the same time decorously - slept soundly, and did
not disquiet himself with dreams.
But the wide alarm spread through the whole Church of Rome by the
progress of the reformed doctrines, sorely disturbed the repose of Abbot
Boniface, and opened to him a wide field of duties and cares which he had
never so much as dreamed of. There were opinions to be combated and
refuted practices to be inquired into -heretics to be detected and punished-the fallen off to be reclaimed-the wavering to be confirmed-scandal
to be removed from the clergy, and the vigour of discipline to be re-established. Post upon post arrived at the Monastery of Saint Mary's —horses
reeking, and riders exhausted -this from the Privy Council, that from the
Primate of Scotland, and this other again from the Queen Mother, exhorting,
approving, condemning, requesting advice upon this subject, and requiring
information upon that.
These missives Abbot Boniface received with an important air of helplessness, or a helpless air of importance, whichever the reader may please to
term it, evincing at once gratified vanity, and profound trouble of mind.
The sharp-witted Primate of Saint Andrews had foreseen the deficiencies
of the Abbot of St. Mary's, and endeavoured to provide for them by getting
admitted into his Monastery as Sub-Prior a brother Cistercian, a man of
parts and knowledge, devoted to the service of the Catholic Church, and
very capable not'only to advise the Abbot on occasions of difficulty, but to
make him sensible of his duty in case he should, from good-nature or
timidity, be disposed to shrink from it.
Father Eustace played the same part in the Monastery as the old general
who, in foreign armies, is placed at the elbow of the Prince of the Blood,
who nominally commands in chief, on condition of attempting nothing
without the advice of his dry-nurse; and he shared the fate of all such drynurses, being heartily disliked as well as feared by his principal. Still,
however, the Primate's intention was fully answered. Father Eustace