5. Monastic life, instead of being subservient to holiness of heart, was in the vast majority of cases injurious to the monks themselves. The fearful language of Jerome is full of instruction: “O quoties ego ipso in eremo constitutus in illa vasta solitudine, quæ exusta solis ardoribus, horridum monachis præstat habitaculum, putavi me Romanis interesse deliciis.… Ille igitur ego, qui ob Gehennæ metum tali me earcere ipse damnaveram, seorpiorum tantum socius et ferarum, sæpe choris intereram puellarum.