monks were not (as I have said elsewhere) in their right minds at
all.

This is, or ought to be, patent to any one who will compare the
style of the Apostles and Evangelists with that of the monkish
hagiologists. The calm, the simplicity, the brevity, the true
grandeur of the former is sufficient evidence of their healthy-
mindedness and their trustworthiness. The affectation, the self-
consciousness, the bombast, the false grandeur of the latter is
sufficient evidence that they are neither healthy-minded or
trustworthy. Let students compare any passage of St. Luke or St.
John, however surprising the miracle which it relates, with St.
Jerome's life of Paul the First Hermit, or with that famous letter
of his to Eustochium, which (although historically important) is
unfit for the eyes of pure-minded readers and does not appear in
this volume; and let them judge for themselves. Let them compare,
again, the opening sentences of the Four Gospels, or of the Acts of
the Apostles, with the words with which Reginald begins this life of
St. Godric. "By the touch of the Holy Spirit's finger the chord of
the harmonic human heart resounds melodiously. For when the vein of
the heart is touched by the grace of the Holy Spirit, forthwith, by
the permirific sweetness of the harmony, an exceeding operation of
sacred virtue is perceived more manifestly to spring forth. With
this sweetness of spirit, Godric, the man of God, was filled from
the very time of his boyhood, and grew famous for many admirable
works of holy work (sic), because the harmonic teaching of the Holy
Spirit fired the secrets of his very bosom with a wondrous contact
of spiritual grace:"--and let them say, after the comparison, if the
difference between the two styles is not that which exists between
one of God's lilies, fresh from the field, and a tawdry bunch of