PROLEGOMENA. IxXXV. 



merits. Hence I cannot, consistently with sound 

 sense, deny to the Saints the wisdom of their 

 choice, nor question the policy of those who 

 make at once a compendious sacrifice of the de- 

 lights of their fleshy envelope, and live for those 

 pleasures alone which they are sure of, when the 

 bond of corruption is burst asunder. Neither 

 can I altogether blame the secluded life of the 

 hermit in his cell, though I own the active life 

 of the Jesuit is the more perfect charity. For 

 though bees who live abroad lay up much honey ; 

 yet the caterpillar has often the securer lot, who 

 seeks some sequestered crevice and spins his 

 silken woof round his cell in a corner, working 

 quietly therethrough, till he can gain his wings 

 to fly away and sport in the flowery fields prepared 

 for him. ' 



Having thus given the reader subject for 

 meditation in the morning and another for night, 

 I shall conclude this part of the enquiry, and 

 proceed to the subject of the middle of each page 

 in the book, namely, the natural beauties of each 

 day in the revolving year. To a contemplative 

 man, the whole day will afford subjects of medi- 

 tation ; he will not only meditate on the End of 

 Man in the morning, and on Death, the passage 

 to that end, at night, but on the various means 

 of arriving thereat during the day. If a 

 monk were to say to me that he performed all 



