PROLEGOMENA. xli. 



words or the power of logic pretend, that he who 

 sleeps on beds of down, while his neighbour is 

 forced to lay awake on the stones, who impatient- 

 ly revolts at pain, trouble, and crosses, and who 

 lives in indulgence, raking up the treasures of a 

 motheaten and corruptible existence, to revel in 

 carrion, is really a follower of Christ crucified ? 

 and I admit, with our enemies, that it were better 

 to give up the name. Besides, an individual has 

 no right to limit the signification of Christ's 

 declaration, that a rich man cannot enter the 

 kingdom of his Father. Innocent IV. ratified, 

 at the prayer of St. Francis, the rule of 

 mendicity as observed by the Friars Minors, 

 vi'hich has been ever since recognised by the 

 infallible Church as a model of perfection. I ana, 

 I trust, neither bigotted, nor do I single out 

 protestants as objects of censure any more than 

 I should an affluent and avaricious member of 

 our own Church, but having undertaken to 

 explain her doctrines, as far as a man of limited 

 knowledge can do in this little volume, it is 

 impossible to avoid showing that the genuine 

 spirit of our religion is poverty. Not that actual 

 poverty is necessary, except for those who have 

 made religious vows, but the spirit of poverty 

 must be maintained by all christians. As the spirit 

 of mortification and solitude of prayer has caused a 

 Monk to be called the companion of God ; so 



D 



