42 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiii. 



endeavour to do justly in dealing with the vested interests 

 involved, notwithstanding the unworthiness of so many 

 of the participants in them. The Cardinals, in their 



'■ Into what factions — into liow many sects is the order cut up ! Then, what 

 tumults, what tragedies arise about little differences in the colour or mode of girding the 

 monastic habit, or some matter of ceremony which, if not altogether despicable, is at all 

 events not so important as to warrant the banishment of all charity. How many, too, 

 are there (and this is surely worst of all) who, relying on the assurances of their monastic 

 profession, inwardly raise their crests so higli that they seem to tlieniselves to move in the 

 heavens, and reclining among the solar rays, to look down from on high upon the people 

 creeping on the ground like ants, looking down thus, not only on the ungodly, but also 

 upon all who are without the circle of the enclosure of their order, so that for the most 

 part nothing is holy but what they do themselves. . . They make more of things 



which appertain specially to the religious order, than of tliose valueless and very humble 

 things which are in no way jicculiar to them but entirely common to all Christian 

 peo|ilc, such as the vulgar virtues — faith, hope, charity, the fear of Ciod, humility, and 

 others of the kind. Nor, indeed, is this a new thing. Nay, it is what Chri.st long ago 

 denounced to his chosen people, ' Ye make the word of God of none effect through your 

 traditions.' 



"There are multitudes enough who would be afraid that the devil would come upon 

 them and take them alive to hell, if, forsooth, they were to set aside their usual garb, 

 whom nothing can move when they are grasj)ing at money. 



" Are there only a few, think you, who would deem it a crime to be expiated with 

 many tears, if they were to omit a line in their hourly prayers, and yet ha%'e no fearful 

 scruple at all, when they ])rofane themselves by the worst and most infamous lies.''" . . . 

 [He goes on to speak of an Abbot who, he says, had "committed the most horrible crimes 

 I ever heard of"; and he concludes ihus:] 



" Now, I have not mentioned this with the view either to defame the religion of the 

 monks with these crimes, since the same soil may bring forth useful herbs and pestiferous 

 weeds, or to condemn the rites of those who occasionally salute the sacred Virgin, than 

 which nothing is more beneficial ; but because people trust so much in such things that 

 under the very security which they thus feel they give themselves up to crime. 



" From reflections such as the.se you may learn the lesson which the occasion suggests. 

 That you should not grow too proud of j'our own sect — nothing could be more fatal. 

 Nor trust in private observances. That you should jilace your hopes rather in the 

 Christian faith than in your own and not trust in those things which you can do for 

 yourself, but in those which you cannot do without God's help. You can fast by yourself, 

 you can keep vigils by yourself, you can say prayers by yourself — and you can do these 

 things by the devil ! But verilv. Christian faith, which Christ Jesus truly said to be in 

 the spirit; Christian hope, which, despairing of its own merits, confides only in the mercy 

 of God; Christian charity, which is not puffed up, is not made angry, does not seek its 

 own glory — none, indeed, can attain these except by the grace and gracious help of God 

 alone. 



" But how much the more you place your trust in those virtues wliich are common 

 to Christendom, by so much the less will j'ou liave faith in private ceremonies, whether 

 those of your order or your own ; and by how much tlie less you trust in them by so 

 much the more will they be useful. For then at last God will esteem vou a faithful 

 servant, when you shall count yourself good for nothing." 



