I do believe that there are many pious and conscientious women thus engaged; yet they are but tools of the priests, and by them placed in these institutions for the purpose of making proselytes." A pause ensued, and Florence paced slowly along the bank.

Somewhat abruptly she replied: "Yet you will admit, Mary, that we owe much to the monks, by whose efforts light and knowledge were preserved during the dark ages?
But for them every vestige of literature, every record of the past, would inevitably have been lost." "Tell me, Florry, what caused the dark ages?
Was it not the gradual withdrawal of light and knowledge--the crushing, withering influence exerted on the minds of men?
And tell me if this influence was not wielded by the priests of Rome--corrupted, fallen Rome?
During the dark period in question, papal power was at its height; the thunders of the Vatican were echoed from the Adriatic to the Atlantic--from the Mediterranean to the North Sea.

An interdict of its profligate Pope clothed cities, and kingdoms, and empires in mourning; the churches were closed, the dead unburied, and no rite, save that of baptism, performed.

Ignorance and superstition reigned throughout the world; and it is said, that in the ninth century scarce a person was to be found in Rome itself who knew even the alphabet.

Yet monasteries crowned every eminence, and dotted the vales of southern Europe.