" I lay a
stress upon this reserve, because it repels the suspicion of enthusiasm:
for enthusiasm is wont to expatiate upon the condition of the departed,
above all other subjects, and with a wild particularity. It is moreover
a topic which is always listened to with greediness. The teacher,
therefore, whose principal purpose is to draw upon himself attention, is
sure to be full of it. The Koran of Mahomet is half made up of it.
II. Our Lord enjoined no austerities. He not only enjoined none as
absolute duties, but he recommended none as carrying men to a higher
degree of Divine favour. Place Christianity, in this respect, by the
side of all institutions which have been founded in the fanaticism
either of their author or of his first followers: or, rather, compare in
this respect Christianity, as it came from Christ, with the same
religion after it fell into other hands--with the extravagant merit very
soon ascribed to celibacy, solitude, voluntary poverty; with the rigours
of an ascetic, and the vows of a monastic life; the hair-shirt, the
watchings, the midnight prayers, the obmutescence, the gloom and
mortification of religious orders, and of those who aspired to religious
perfection.
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