xl. PROLEGOMENA. 



poor, which lot he would prefer, but the latter 

 seems to me to be in the more perfect Christianity, 

 or I have misunderstood it, as taken from the 

 sermon on the mount preached by Chris;. And 

 those who amass property, ecclesiastical or lay, 

 whether by tithes or by commerce, would do well 

 to recollect the answer of the young'er brother of 

 St. Bernard, who, as we read, when the Saint 

 with his other brothers, retiring to a con vent, gave 

 him all his rich lands to his inheritance, returned 

 for answer, — " What, will you ^11 take heaven 

 for your portion, and leave me only the earth ?" 

 He knew riches might loose him heaven, and 

 remembered the Avords of our Lord, Quid prof ecti 

 hahet, qui toium munduvn ohtineat, et animum 

 suum perdit ? v 



I own I can see but little of Christianity in 

 its new fashioned professors ; the spirit of the 

 whole system appears lost in the world. And 

 the only apology, though it is not a justification, 

 for those men of genius, who being educated in the 

 learned sciences to behold and to converse with 

 the harmony of nature, for rejecting Christianity, 

 is that, between the fanatical cant of profession, 

 and the sordid cupidity of practice, among the 

 worldly victims of heresy, all must seem to a 

 contemplative mind to be discord, hypocrisy, and 

 paradox. 



Can any one who knows the meaning of 



