The same fallacy has conciliated veneration to the
religious orders. When we behold a man abdicating
the hope of terrestrial possessions, and precluding
himself, by an irrevocable vow, from the pursuit
and acquisition of all that his fellow-beings consider
as worthy of wishes and endeavours, we are
immediately struck with the purity, abstraction, and
firmness of his mind, and regard him as wholly
employed in securing the interests of futurity, and
devoid of any other care than to gain, at whatever
price, the surest passage to eternal rest.
Yet, what can the votary be justly said to have
lost of his present happiness? If he resides in a
convent, he converses only with men whose condition
is the same with his own; he has, from the munificence
of the founder, all the necessaries of life, and
is safe from that destitution, which Hooker declares
to be "such an impediment to virtue, as, till it be
removed, suffereth not the mind of man to admit
any other care." All temptations to envy and
competition are shut out from his retreat; he is not
pained with the sight of unattainable dignity, nor
insulted with the bluster of insolence, or the smile
of forced familiarity, If he wanders abroad, the
sanctity of his character amply compensates all other
distinctions; he is seldom seen but with reverence,
nor heard but with submission.
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