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Here in these rich and peaceful gardens, Abbot Epicurus of Beeleigh who held in his hands, at convenient arm's length, the prosperous town of Maldon could discourse at leisure to his girl disciples had there been a house of canonesses here of the lusts and passions that dominate the world, repletion, extravagance, disorders, disease, warfare, and death.
The country around Maldon is dotted plentifully with evidences of past ages; Layer Marney, with its famous towers; D'Arcy Hall, noted for containing some of the finest linen panelling in England; Beeleigh Abbey, and other old-world buildings.
Compare this abbey even with Castle Hedingham a few miles away, once the home of the great De Veres, by no means so gloomy as such castles are wont to be, and I doubt if you would prefer it to live in; as a matter of fact it has been little used for centuries, while Beeleigh is still a home.
Their attitude was humane, their rule not excessively ascetic; they allowed men and women to exercise the religious life side by side in neighbouring houses; they lived in the country but they were in familiar touch with the world. The White Canons ruled Maldon, but they lived at Beeleigh.
And to-day I have been wandering in a very different scene around the scanty and charming remains of the Abbey of Beeleigh, along peaceful walks by lovely streams in this most delightful corner of Essex, which the Premonstratensian Canons once captured, in witness of the triumph of religion over the world and the right of the religious to enjoy the best that the world can give.
In reality Abbot Epicurus had captured all the best things the world can hold and established them at Beeleigh, leaving only the dregs. And at the same time, by a supreme master-stroke of ironic skill, he persuaded those stupid dregs that in spurning them he had renounced the World! August 27. Here in the north-west of Suffolk and on into Norfolk there is a fascinating blank in the map.
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