midnight
During summer , the cooler hours of morning and afternoon were spent in the field , and the middle of the day in study ; winter saw this order reversed . On Sunday the monks laboured not with their hands , and thought only of the Word of God . The hours of the divine office suffered , of course , no change all the year round : their number in the daytime was dictated by that verse of the Psalmist : ` Septies in die laudem dixi tibi ' ; therefore did the community assemble at lauds , at prime , at the third hour , at mid-day , at the ninth hour , at vespers , and at compline . They arose , moreover , for prayer at midnight , and for matins before dawn . On all this the hearer mused when he was left alone , and with his musing blended a sense of peace such as had never before entered into his heart . He had returned to his chamber , and was reposing on the bed , when there entered one of the two monks by whom he was conveyed up the mountain . With happy face , this visitor presented to him a new volume , which , he declared with modest pride , was from beginning to end the work of his own hand .