A monastery was a place where in a special sense the spiritual commerce of the world was carried on: as a workman's shed is the place deputed and used by the world for the manufacture of certain articles.

It was the manufactory of grace where skilled persons were at work, busy at a task of prayer and sacrament which was to be at other men's service.

If the father of a family had a piece of spiritual work to be done, he went to the monastery and arranged for it, and paid a fee for the sustenance of those he employed, as he might go to a merchant's to order a cargo and settle for its delivery.
Since this was so then, it was necessary that the spiritual workmen should be in a certain touch with those for whom they worked.

It was true that they must be out of the world, undominated by its principles and out of love with its spirit; but in another sense they must live in its heart.

To use another analogy they were as windmills, lifted up from the earth into the high airs of grace, but their base must be on the ground or their labour would be ill-spent.