Show I LAI J GRAXDD CHARTREUSC 3IOXAS TERV The government of the Chartreux is monarchial rather than communistic The generalchapter is supposed to be the supreme su-preme power to which the Reverend Pere General is subject but inasmuch as this officer is the head of the chapter he in fact and not the chapter is the lex su prema The office of Reverend Pere General Gen-eral is elective as well as a number of Inferior offices the Pere Superior Pere Prior etc all of whom are elected by the chapter in which all members of proper prop-er age or service in the order are electors The order is divided into priests and laymen lay-men peres and freres monks and converts con-verts or vovice Besides these there is a class known as donnes who are bound by the usual vows but who give themselves to the order on a simple contract con-tract They perform the necessary labor or secular business of the order wear a costume of brown color shave their beards but not their heads and inhabit the lodges on the right of tie entrance to the convent Latin ji the official language of the order and this fact alone creates an aristocratic community The greater number of converts are young men who having completed their education know little or nothing of the world The costume cos-tume of the monk is of white wool cut somewhat after the model of the tunica talaris of the Romans bound at the waist by a belt of white leather from which hangs a chaplet Over the tunic the cuculle of facapulaire is worn surmounted sur-mounted by the capuchon the coiffure of the ancient Gauls Thus clothed the prostrate monk kisses the altar and places thereon his cedule of profession signed only with the cross foi henceforth hence-forth he has no name and though living he is now forever dead to the world j Catholic World j C P I |