A Retreat at La Trappe [pp. 862-883]

A RE TREAT A T LA TRAP~PE.
And now I have, as far as space will permit and words
allow, described the Trappist and his daily life, yet the sketch
gives no just idea of the actual man himself. The reader has
doubtless pictured him as unsociable, gloomy-even perhaps
morose and severe. Nothing could be further from the truth;
and this is one of the greatest of the many surprises awaiting
one at La Trappe. He is the very picture of peaceful happiness and contentment, nay even of gaiety, and his smiling bow,
when he meets you by chance in the corridor or on the farm,
is so friendly and sociable that, though he may never address a
word to you during your visit, yet when you leave you feel
that you are parting with a friend.
The Trappist, too, is an enduring and conclusive answer to
the objector who, when fasting and other forms of penance are
spoken of, cries out against the sin of voluntarily injuring one's
health. The Trappist rule is of all rules the most severe, and
of the novices who attempt to enter the order a large proportion are forced to withdraw before completing their novitiate.
Yet of those who persevere the majority are strong and healthy,
are rarely ill, and live to an extreme old age. At the time I
last visited Oka there had been only two deaths in the community in the eleven years that had then elapsed since the establishment of the monastery, and the one death I have since
heard of was due to an accident. The latter case was that of
a novice who had both legs taken off by some machinery with
which he was working. He lived only long enough to receive
the last Sacraments, and to pronounce his final vows, which he
begged to be allowed to do in order that he might die a Trappist.
But what has become of the "retreat," the subject of this
article? I fear I may be accused, and with some apparent
reason, of deviating from the proper subject of my paper. Yet
do I not plead guilty to the accusation; for the impression
created by much of what I have been endeavoring to describe
forms, in my opinion, by far the most important factor in the
success of the retreat. To go to La Trappe and see its inmates-see'their piety, their mortifications, the holy peace of
their lives; hear their heartfelt prayers and their exquisite
chants, and experience the saintliness which is stamped on all
their actions, and which seems to pervade the very air you
breathe in common with them-all this, even with nothing else,
is calculated to create an impression more vivid and more lasting than any other form of religious exercise I have experienced. But there is much else besides this. The conducting
of private retreats is the direct way-their constant prayers and
880
[Mar.,