stage; for all that we have already passed bespoke the assuaging, moderating influence of Catholicism in regard to the principle that impels those who frequent this road. By providing

hopes, other motives, weans men from immoderate industry, and at the same time prevents their activity from impelling them towards other ways of death: it enforces this great lesson, that there are two loves, as St. Leo says, from which all wills proceed, as different in qualities as they are divided by their authors, - that the rational soul, which cannot be without love, must be a lover either of God or of the world; that in the love of God there can be no excess; but that in the love of the world all things are noxious, - "et ideo æternis bonis inseparabiliter est inhærendum, temporabilus vero transeunter utendum est; ut peregrinantibus nobis et ad patriam redire properantibus, quicquid de prosperitatibus mundi hujus occurrerit, viaticum sit itineris, non illecebra mansionis."*

poison

"Money," says Columbus, in the drama of Lopez de Vega, "is the essential thing. Money is the intelligence, the force, the address, the surest helper and the best friend of man.' Columbus had in view its use and application by Catholic men docile to the inspirations of the Church. But that estimate was combined in his mind with acquiescence in her great lessons, that "the hope of acquiring temporal things is po of charity;" and, as St. Augustin says, "that the diminution of cupidity is the nourishment of charity-that the internal signs of charity are profound and intimate sighs of the mind, - lofty desires, thoughts languid in regard to worldly things-higher expectations, and ecstatic affections." At this point of the forest fearful torrents, swollen by the snows of distant hills, rage here by our path. "The river of the devil," says the abbot Joachim, "which is pride, flows into the river of avarice, which falls into that of luxury. Avarice flows sometimes like a fountain, at others like a torrent, at others like a river, one time rising up, another rushing onwards, another extending itself far and wide. "Tu dirupisti fontes et torrentes; Tu siccasti fluvios." ↑ These words can be addressed to the Catholic Church. She makes this road safe by moderating the rage of these waters, by purifying the fountain, and by turning the stream in a salutary direction. The old road, indeed, has only victims to offer for guides; she points at him who followed it to his destruction"Auxiliumque viæ veteres tellure recludit

Thesauros, ignotum argenti pondus et auri."‡

* S. Leo Magn. De Jejun. Sept. Mens. Serm. v. ap. Do.
+ Abbot Joachim super Hierem, xvi.
‡ Æn. i. 358.

[B

She shows us some one like that Hugo of Durham in terrenis disponendis prudentissimus, et sine multi eloquentissimus, pecuniarum sitientissimus, earumqu tissimus quærendarum," who built many castles an edifices; "quo plus studuit ædificare in terra, eo r ædificare curavit in cœlo,"* and who has been, by avoidable destiny of avoided grace,

She shows us another, like Rupert, abbot of Reichnau, branded with the epithet of "Nummularius," for havin money;† or like Celsus, under king Guntchramnus, of lofty stature and of great strength, swelling in words tune in replies, skilled in the reading of law, so covet he often seizes the goods of the churches to join ther own, who when once he heard the prophet Isaiah rea church, saying, Væ his qui jungunt domum ad don agrum ad agrum, is said to have exclaimed, 'Incong væ mihi et filiis meis." To unfold the malice tha the bottom of such minds, she here refers us to those who, like Cæsarius, have disclosed their miserable aber "Bertolph, duke of Zeringia," says that author, without children, through avarice had amassed great When about to die, he desired his familiars to melt d his treasures into one mass; and being asked why he it so, he answered, 'I know that my relations, rejoicin death, would divide my treasures; but if they are all mass, they will kill each other to gain it.' See what 1 This was told me by two abbots, one of whom was fi duchy of Zeringia."§ But she shows us also the san sometimes moved by her great voice to retrace thei penitent and changed; for, as a French author observes, rapid fortunes, so contrary to the prescriptions of the gave rise to great repentance and to pious foundation kinds. Thus the chapel of St. Agnes, in Paris, which the parish church of St. Eustache, was founded in expia the great fortune made by Jean Alais, citizen of Par first established the tax of a denier on each basket brought to the halles. The popular tradition also that he desired his body to be thrown into a sewer received all the filth of the markets; the aperture bottom of the streets Montmartre and Traince being (

* Guillet. Neubrig. Rer. Anglic. lib. v. c. 8.
+ Gab. Bucelinus Chronologia Constantiensis.

with a great stone, which was called Le Pont-Alais."* certain gre

"A

great statesman," says the Baron de Prelle, "who had realized a large fortune, in his last illness sent for his parish priest, and expressed his resolution to die as a Christian; for which purpose he disclosed the state of his conscience as to the injuries sustained by such a number of persons, that restitution seemed impossible. That sage pastor therefore prescribed alms-26,000 francs to the galley-slaves and prisoners, and 60,000 francs for marriage-portions for poor girls."† The attraction of Catholicity at this point would have been felt by the ancients, if sincere in their professions while estimating human evils; for hear the poet

"Ergo sollicitæ tu causa, pecunia, vitæ es:
Per te immaturum mortis adimus iter.
Tu vitiis hominum crudelia pabula præbes,
Semina curarum de capite orta tuo ;"‡

or the philosopher, saying, "The chief cause of murder and such crimes is cupidity and violent desires, as in those who are possessed by an excessive love for riches, which engender in their hearts a crowd of insatiable desires, which have their source in their character and a bad education. This bad education is to be ascribed to the false notions about riches entertained by the Greeks or barbarians, for by preferring them to other good they degrade themselves and their descendants. Nothing would be better for the state than if it held a language concerning riches conformable to truth, namely, that they are made for the sake of the body, and that the body is made for the sake of the soul." § The Church not alone accepts and ratifies these judgments, and therefore so far stands revealed to those who hear them, but she yields men power supernatural to square their lives in accordance with them, and so wins them by a sense of divinity to herself. Hear how she ratifies the ancient wisdom. "Why so greedy of external goods?" exclaims St. Augustin. "Lo, what advantage to have a full chest and an empty conscience? You wish to have good things, and you do not wish to be good ! Do you not perceive that you ought to blush on account of your goods, if your house is full of good things and you alone are bad in it? What is there that you wish to have bad? Tell me. Truly, nothing. Not a wife, not a son, not a daughter, not a servant, not a maid, not a farm, not a tunic,

* Le Roux de Lincy, Les Femmes célèbres de l'ancienne France,

i. 532. + Considérations sur la Vieillesse dans la Vie Chrést. politique, &c. 126. ‡ Propertius. § Plat. de Legibus, lib. ix.

not even a shoe, and yet you wish and have a bad life. I entreat you, prefer your life to your shoe. When all things about you are beautiful and good, be not the only thing vile and loathsome there. For this is the only good whic you cannot lose against your will. You can lose gold against your will, you can lose a house, honours, life itself, but the good by which you are truly good you can neither receive nor lose against your will."* "( ignis inextinguibilis!" exclaims Pope Innocent III., "cupiditas insatiabilis! quis unquam cupidus primo fuit voto contentus? The more he gains the more he wishes, and his eye is insatiable.† Wherefore can he not be satiated? Dost thou wish to know," he continues, "O man of cupidity, wherefore thou art always empty-why thou canst never be filled? Attend. A measure cannot be full, which however much it may hold, can still contain more. But the human mind can contain God, since he who adheres to God is one spirit with Him. However much it may hold, it is never full, unless when it contains God, whom it can never hold. Si vis ergo satiari, desinas esse cupidus; quia dum cupidus fueris, satiari non poteris.‡ Cur ad congregandum quis instet, quum stare non possit ille qui congregat? Nam quasi flos egreditur et conteritur, et fugit velut umbra et nunquam in eodem statu permanet.§ Avaritia est servitus idolorum. Ille timet mutilare simulachrum, et iste timet minuere thesaurum. || Avarus ad petendum promptus, ad dandum tardus, ad nega negandum frontosus." Such are the high sentences placed along this path by the hand of a sovereign pontiff. Catholicity thus purifies the fountain. Let us observe how it dries up the torrent. Who knows not that the epoch of the false reformers was distinguished by an overflowing of all the noxious and boisterous streams that make perilous the road of active life? A voice here sounds like that which Dante heard in the region of eternal pains, saying,

"And if of that securer proof thou need,
Remember but our craving thirst for gold."**

Since that time the torrents rage, as under the reign of Saturn, when the poet says, "Hardly do I see any one whose heart is not rejoiced by gain;" but there is a cunning sophistical and unhallowed spirit that defies censure, while requiring that everything should be sacrificed to money; for each of these men who live only to calculate primes, actions, dividends, and

* De Verb. Dom. Serm. xii.

+ De Contemptu Mundi, &c. lib. ii. c. 6.

whose souls only rise and fall with the funds, has a conscience so sophisticated that he will say with the clown in Shakspear, "But I would not have you to think that my desire of having is the sin of covetousness." The Catholic monitors being withdrawn, such men are not aware of their own intellectual degradation, and so on they hurry, inflamed with an infinite desire of all perishable things; as Cicero says, "Following the sound of gold as bees that of brass :" *

"Ea turba cupidine prædæ

Per rupes scopulosque, adituque carentia saxa,
Quàque est difficilis, quàque est via nulla, sequuntur."+

The ancient miseries return

ἕτερα δ ̓ ἕτερος ἕτερον

ὄλβῳ καὶ δυνάμει παρῆλθεν.
μυρίαι δὲ μυρίοισιν
ἔτ ̓ εἰσὶν ἐλπίδες.

"It is evident," says Plutarch, "that Demetrius resolved at any price to remove from Aristides and Socrates all suspicion of poverty, as if it were a great evil;" so he says that the latter was proprietor of a house, and that he had besides seventy silver mine. Such, in the absence of Catholicism, would be the apologies now adduced. Cato the Censor neglected agriculture as not furnishing a sufficent source of revenue; but placing his money at interest, he purchased ponds, springs of mineral water, sites for manufactures, and woods for sale of timber, of all which he said that Jupiter himself could not diminish the revenue. According to him, "The divine man most glorious is he who can prove by his accounts that he has made more wealth than his father left him." Such are the fat and greasy citizens that still sweep on, as in the days that announced the desolation of a perishing empire-"Ubi est lex Catholica quam credunt? Ubi sunt pietatis et castitatis præcepta quæ discunt? Evangelia legunt, et impudici sunt. Apostolos audiunt, et inebriabuntur; vitam improbam agunt, et probam legem se habere dicunt." § "I hope," said a guest Catholically moved, who meets a representative of the moneyed interest in our age, "that your children are not too fond of money and business, to the exclusion of more important things. I am sure you would not wish that." To whom the financier is reported to have answered, "I am sure I should wish that. I wish them to give mind, and soul, and heart, and body, and everything

* Cont. Rullum. + Ov. Met. iii. 5.

§ Salvian, lib. iv. de Guber.

+ Bacch. 905.