ABout twenty years ago a certain Benedictine Abbot suddenly ordered one of his monks, still young and inexperienced, to deliver before an important ccimmunity the conferences usual in the course of the annual Retreat.
As this Retreat coincided with the week of Pentecost, the monk thought that he could not do better than demonstrate, from the manner of life of the primitive Christians immediately after the descent of the Spirit, the origin and model of the life that should be led by monks. So he took for his text the verses from the Acts of the Apostles ii. 37-46, not commenting upon the whole passage in order, but confining himself to the principal features which referred to his subject.