MECHANICAL MONKS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3918, 9 February 1884, Page 4

MECHANICAL MONKS.

In the great Ladoga Lake there is a group of islands known under the name of Balaam. Centuries ago Russian monks landed there and built a convent. The islands are rocky, tho land poor, and the monks had to work hard in order to get a living. Under such circumstances there was no place for "white-headed monks," that is, those belonging to the privileged classes —noblemen, clergymen, and merchants. Only hard-working peasants could stand tho bard life on the Balaam Islands. But then what a busy little world it is now. There aro no idling monks, and no hired hands. The puffing and v.-histling- of steam machines, the loud, resounding blows of hammers, the ceaseless noise of water-mills, the rattling of the wheels of heavy waggons —it seems rather like an industrial establishment than a monastery. And curiously enough, all the machines were set up, aud all tho works established by a peasant monk, a self-made enginneer, Athanasy. _ Now all the cells are provided with water raised from the lake by steam power. The aged monks say, sighing: '' In the olden time it was hard to carry water up the rocks, but then God's angels assisted us. Now everything is done by machinery, and tho angels have fled." But the monk workers of the modern type do not mind tho complaints of the old monks ; and, indeed, they have no time to listen. In ono place they are blowing up and drilling the rocks, in order to make places for new houses ; in another place they arc casting iron gates. In the ba leery there is a gigantic furnace, which the monks jokingly call " hell's mouth," and an oven in which they bake at once a hundred loaves. In the cellar they keep kvus in huge barrels, beside which a man is a pigmy. The rocks tremble and groan, feeling as it were their helplossnc.-s against the might of num. It seems as though giants, not monks, were performing cyclopean works upon theso islands. The monks of Balaam never solicit gifts. Thoy earn all they need, They do not like visitors, and they call them idlers. Here the peasant reigns, and he has brought hero his love of work and of cquallity. '' Working tho convent is as good as praying," they say, and so the monks of Balaam have not much uso for the hermits, who live on one of the islands. "Wo have to serve them, and they only take our time," they murmur. The peasant monk has here perfected the principles of his village commune, Common work, equal profits, and tho individual subservient to society ; this is what we see on the Balaam Islands.—Corr. Now York Sun.