Black Monks

Black Monks

It was nighttime in the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, Ark. The 40 monks slept soundly in their dormitory on the conventional quadrangle. Across the yard were the college classrooms, and sleeping quarters for visitors. Adjacent was the library with manuscripts dating back to the 5th century. Adjacent on the opposite side was the student dormitory where 150 boys slept.

Subiaco is one of the 18 Benedictine abbeys in the U. S. Father Wolfgang Schlumph founded it in 1878. Arkansas at that time was a wild district of Indians and white outlaws. The Army garrison at Fort Smith was a necessity. But Father Schlumph with his blackrobed Benedictines feared no one. His troupe worked their way through the Ozarks and at a mountain spot 50 miles from Fort Smith they made a clearing, sawed and chopped blocks of limestone from the mountain walls and built themselves a home. They called the place Subiaco, after Subiaco in Italy where St. Benedict himself had founded a monastery in the 6th Century. That first structure, fire destroyed 27 years ago.

And in the nighttime last week fire again came to destroy the monastery. The monks hastily pulled on their squared-toed shoes, their black gowns; they ran to the student dormitories and herded the sleepy boys to safety. They knew that they had neither chance nor means to extinguish the blaze. Water was too scant in the mountains. They telephoned Fort Smith. The night telephone operator there saw their signal flashing redly from her switchboard; asked, respectfully, what they wished; put them in instant connection with the Fort Smith fire department.

It was useless to attempt to drive the fire trucks from Fort Smith to Subiaco. The distance is 50 miles and the roads bad. A five-mile stretch ust west of Paris was impossible. So the firemen loaded their trucks on railroad cars and shipped them by rail to Subiaco. They wasted no time. But when they arrived at the monastery they found little to do other than to look at the bleak walls, the shivering students and monks.