In 1098, Robert, Abbot of Citeaux introduced into his monastery an adaptation of the Rule of St. Benedict and thus grave rise to what is popularly known as the Cistercian Order. From this proceeded such houses as Fountains, Tintern, Melrose, Buckfast and Furness, the last two descending from the Cistercian house of Savigny, as also did La Trappe in France, founded in 1122. In 1664, the ‘Thundering Abbot,’ whom a recent biography has made more familiar if not too attractive amongst us, re-reformed his monastery, not least along the lines of manual labour : hence the ‘Trappists.’ It was these whom Bishop Ricards, vicar-apostolic of the Eastern Province of Cape Colony, begged, in 1879, to come to his assistance in South Africa; and in July 1880, a contingent of fifty arrived at Port Elizabeth. A start was made at Dunbrody. The locality proved too obdurate, and in 1882 the community removed to Durban and thence went inland to what is now Mariannhill. It seems difficult for religious congregations in South Africa to survive satisfactorily as branches of their original group : in 1909 the Mariannhill Traopists separated them selves from the Traopists, and became the ‘Religious Missionaries of Mariannhill,’ a congregation devoted entirely to South African work. Numbering at prespnt about two hundred and fifty, of whom more than half are lay brothers, and predominantly German in nationality, the Fathers work in a very great number of mission stations, not only in Natal, but in the Cape Province and in Rhodesia, confining their work (save quite incidentally to the native population.