“St. Benedict . . . found the world, physical and social, in ruins, and his mission was to restore it in the way, not of science, but of nature . . . not professing to do it by any set time or by any rare specific or by any series of strokes, but so quietly, patiently, gradually . . . Silent men were observed about the country, or discovered in the forest, digging, clearing, and building; and other silent men, not seen, were sitting in the cold cloister, tiring their eyes, and keeping their attention on the stretch, while they painfully deciphered and copied and re-copied the manuscripts which they had saved. There was no one that “contended, or cried out,” or drew attention to what was going on; but by degrees the woody swamp became a hermitage, a religious house, a farm, an abbey, a village, a seminary, a school of learning, and a city . . .
