pleasures and frivolities; are warm, like the rest of men, upon fortune, upon favour, upon preferences, and upon injuries; pursue their own ends, have still a desire of pleasing, eagerly seek after distinctions and favours, and sometimes make even piety subservient toward more surely attaining them. Ah! it is then that the world triumphs, and that it feels itself comforted in the comparison; it is then that, finding such a resemblance between the virtue of the good' and its own vices, it feels tranquil upon its situation, and thinks that it is needless to change, since, in changing the name, the same things are still retained.
And it is here that I cannot prevent myself from saying, with the apostle Peter, to you whom God hath recalled, from the ways of the world and of the passions, to those of truth and righteousness: let us act in such a manner among the worldly, that, in place of decrying virtue as they have hitherto done, and of despising or censuring those who practise it; the good works which they shatl behold in us, our pure and holy manners, our patience under scorn, our wisdom and our circumspection in discourse, our modesty and humility in exaltation, our equality of mind and submission under disgrace, our gentleness toward our inferiors, our regard for our equals, our fidelity toward our masters, our universal charity toward our brethern, force them to render glory to God, make them to respect and even to envy the destiny of virtue, and dispose their hearts to receive the grace of light and of truth when it shall deign to visit them, and to enlighten them upon their erroneous ways. Let us shut up the mouth of all the enemies of virtue by the sight of an irreprehensible life: let us honour piety, that it may honour us: let us render it respectable, if we wish to gain partisans to it: let us furnish to the world examples which condemn it, and not censures which justify it: let us accustom it to think, that godliness is profitable unto all things, having promises not only of the life to come, but also peace, satisfaction, and content, which are the only good, and the only real pleasures of the present life.
To this persecution of scandal, Herod adds a persecution of seduction: he tempts the sanctity and the fidelity of the ministers of the law; he wishes to make the zeal and the holy boldness of the magi instrumental to his impious designs: in a word, he neglects nothing to undo the truth before he openly attacks it.
And behold a fresh manner in which we continually persecute the truth. In the first place, we weaken the piety of the just by accusing their fervour of excess, and by struggling to persuade them that they do too much; we exhort them, like the grand tempter, to change their stones into bread; that is to say, to abate from their austerity, and to change that retired, gloomy, and laborious life, into a more ordinary and comfortable one: we give them room to dread that the sequel will not correspond with the beginnings: in a word, we endeavour to draw them nearer to us, being unwilling to rise ourselves to a
