The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

humility. The manuscript of the first volume having been submitted to
Mr. Challoner, the vicar-apostolic of the London district, he
recommended the omission of all the notes, not {031} excepting that
beautiful note which gave an account of the writings of St. John
Chrysostom. His motive was, that, by being made less bulky, the work
might be made less expensive, and, consequently, more generally useful.
It is easy to suppose what it must have cost our author to consign to
oblivion the fruit of so much labor and so many vigils. He obeyed,
however, and to this circumstance it is owing that, in the first
edition, the notes in question were omitted.
XI.
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XI. 1. It has been objected to our author's work on the Lives of the
Saints, _that the system of devotion which is recommended by it, is, at
best, suited to the cloister_. But no work has ever appeared, in which
the difference between the duties of a man of the world and the duties
of a religious is more strongly pointed out. Whenever the author has
occasion to mention any action of any saint, which is extraordinary or
singular in its nature he always observes, that it is of a kind rather
to be admired than imitated.
XI. 2. It has been objected, _that the piety which it inculcates is of
the ascetic kind_, and that the spirit of penance, voluntary
mortification, and contempt of the world, which it breathes everywhere,
is neither required nor recommended by the gospel. But no difference can
be found between the spirit of piety inculcated by our author, and that
inculcated by the most approved authors of the Roman Catholic church.
Less of penance, of voluntary mortification, or of contempt of the
world, is not recommended by Rodriguez, by Thomas of Kempis, by St.
Francis of Sales, by Bourdaloue, or Massillon, than is recommended by
our author. Speaking of those "who confound nature with grace, and who
look on the cross of Jesus Christ as an object foreign to faith and
piety;--It was not thus," says Massillon, in his sermon on the
Incarnation, "it was not thus that the apostles announced the gospel to
our ancestors. _The spirit of the gospel is a holy eagerness of
suffering, an incessant attention to mortify self-love, to do violence
to the will, to restrain the desires, to deprive the senses of useless
gratifications; this is the essence of Christianity, the soul of piety_.
If you have not this spirit, you belong not, says the apostle, to Jesus
Christ; it is of no consequence that you are not of the number of the
impure or sacrilegious of whom the apostle speaks, and who will not be
admitted into the kingdom of Christ. You are equally strangers to him;
your sentiments are not his; you still live according to nature; you
belong not to the grace of our Saviour; you will therefore perish, for
it is on him alone, says the apostle, that the Father has placed our