Excerpt from Twelve Years in a Monastery The story has been ratified by the acceptance of countless generations; it has crystallised into a thousand definite theological systems it has inspired a wealth of sacred literature in every civilised nation. If then philosophers, from Crates to Fichte, on their cold reasonings, have been led to despise the changeful forms for the enduring realities their mind was thought to have glimpsed, it is not strange that the warmer, more vibrant tone of religion should have taught the same theme with yet deeper efiect. For religion has gone far beyond the abstract results of philosophy, and has depicted to the imagination, with presumptuous but impressive vividness, the higher power and the larger life in which we are said to be enfolded. Men have gazed on the clear entrancing vision - its fair integrity and its unchanging joy mocking the precarious fulfilment of their soul's desire here below - until the attitude of hope and expectancy has satisfied them even now. In the hermit's cell or in the cloistered abbey they have withdrawn from earth and awaited, with the constancy of the hal luc'inated, the removal of the veil. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.