During summer, the
cooler hours of morning and afternoon were spent in the field, and
the middle of the day in study; winter saw this order reversed. On
Sunday the monks laboured not with their hands, and thought only of
the Word of God. The hours of the divine office suffered, of course,
no change all the year round: their number in the daytime was
dictated by that verse of the Psalmist: 'Septies in die laudem dixi
tibi'; therefore did the community assemble at lauds, at prime, at
the third hour, at mid-day, at the ninth hour, at vespers, and at
compline. They arose, moreover, for prayer at midnight, and for
matins before dawn. On all this the hearer mused when he was left
alone, and with his musing blended a sense of peace such as had
never before entered into his heart.
He had returned to his chamber, and was reposing on the bed, when
there entered one of the two monks by whom he was conveyed up the
mountain. With happy face, this visitor presented to him a new
volume, which, he declared with modest pride, was from beginning to
end the work of his own hand.
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