Glastonbury Abbey [pp. 150-170]

Glastonbury Abbey, Past and Present.
the lite of one-half of the rich in the
world, all flee before the talisman of
active labor; nor should we be discouraged by failure, for it is better to
fail in action than to do nothing.
After all, what is commonly called
failure we shall find to be not altogether such if we examine more
closely. We set out upon some action or engagement, and after infinite
toil we miss the object of that action
or engagement, and they say we have
failed; but there is consolation in this
incontrovertible fact, that although we
may have missed the particular object toward which our efforts have
been directed, yet we have not altogether failed. There are many collateral advantages attendant upon exertion which may even be of greater
importance than the attainment of the
immediate object of that exertion, so
that it is quite possible to fail wholly
in achieving a certain object and yet
make a glorious success. Half the
achievements of life are built up on
failures, and the greater the achievement, the greater evidence it is of persistent combat with failure. The student devotes his days and nights to
some intellectual investigation, and
though he may utterly fail in attaining to the actual object of that search,
yet he may be drawn into some narrow diverging path in the wilderness
of thought which may lead him gradually away from his beaten track on to
the broad open light of discovery.
The navigator goes out &i the broad
ocean in search of unknown tracts of
land, and though he may return, after
long and fruitless wanderings, yet in
the voyages he has made he has acquired experience, and may, perchance,
have learned some fact or thing which
will prove the means of saving him in
the bour of danger. Those great luminaries of the intellectual firmament
-men who devoted their whole lives
to investigate, search, study, and
think for the elevation and good of
their fellows —have only succeeded after a long discipline of failure, but by
that discipline their powers have been
developed, their capacity of thought
expanded, and the experience gradually acquired which at length brought
success. -There is, then, no total failure to honest exertion, for he who
diligently labors must in some way
reap. It is a lesson often reiterated
in apostolic teaching that "whom the
Lord loveth he chasteneth;" and the
truth of that lesson may be more fully
appreciated by a closer contemplation
of life, more especially this phenomenon of life in which we see the Father's love following close upon the
heels of his chastisement. The man
who works lives, but he who works
not lives but a dying and a hopeless
life.
That vow of labor infused new vitality into the monks, and instead of
living as they had hitherto done upon
the charity of the public, they soon
began not only to support themselves,
but to take the poor of their neighborhood under their own especial protection. Whenever the Benedictines resolved on building a monastery, they
chose the most barren, deserted spot
they could find, often a piece of land
long regarded as useless, and therefore
frequently given without a price, then
they set to work, cleared a space for
their buildings, laid their foundations
deep in the earth, and by gradual but
unceasing toil, often with their own
hands, alternating their labor with
their prayers, they reared up those
stately abbeys which still defy the ravages of age. In process of time the
desert spot upon which they had settled underwent a complete transformation-a little world populous with busy
life sprang up in its midst, and far
and near in its vicinity the briers
were cleared away-the hard soil
broken up-gardens and fields laid
out, and soon the land, cast aside by
its owners as useless, bore upon its
fertile bosom flowers, fruit, corn, in
all the rich exuberance of heaven's
blessing upon man's toil-plenty and
peace smiled upon the whole sceneits halls were vocal with the voice of
praise and the incense of charity arose
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