"You are like the young man who came to Jesus, and whom Jesus loved, for you have great possessions. You have been taught all that men desire to know, and are accomplished in all that makes life delightful. You have the knowledge of the past, and know the reality of men’s power, and wisdom, and beauty, which they possess of themselves, and did possess in the old classic times. You have culled of the tree of knowledge, and know good and evil; yea, the good that belongs to this world, and is part of it, and the strength and wisdom and beauty of the children of this world; yea, and the evil and ignorance and folly of the children of light. Let us grant—I am willing to grant—that Plato has a purer spiritual instinct than St. Paul. I will grant that Lucretius has the wisdom of this world with him; ay, and its alluring tongue. Paul did not desire spiritual insight; he wanted Jesus. You stand as a god free to choose. On the one hand, you have the delights of reason and of intellect, the beauty of that wonderful creation which God made, yet did not keep; the charms of Divine philosophy, and the enticements of the poet’s art: on the other side, Jesus. You know Him, and have seen Him. I need say no more of His perfections. "I do not speak to you, as I might speak to others, of penalties and sufferings hereafter, in which, probably, you do not believe. Nor do I speak to you, as I might to others, of evidences that our faith is true, of proofs that hereafter we shall walk with Christ and the saints in glory. I am willing to grant you that it may be that we are mistaken; that in the life to come we may find we have been deceived; nay, that Jesus Himself is in a different station and position to what we preach. This is nothing to your purpose. To those who know Him as you know Him, and have seen Him as you have, better Jesus, beaten and defeated, than all the universe besides, triumphing and crowned. I offer to you nothing but the alternative which every man sooner or later must place before himself. Shall he turn a deaf ear to the voice of reason, and lay himself open only to the light of faith? or shall he let human wisdom and human philosophy break up this light, as through a glass, and please himself with the varied colours upon the path of life? Every man must choose; and having chosen, it is futile to lament and regret; he must abide by his choice, and by the different fruit it brings. You wish this life’s wisdom, and to walk with Christ as well; and you are your own witness that it cannot be. The two cannot walk together, as you have found. To you, especially, this is the great test and trial that Christ expects of you to the very full. We of this religious order have given ourselves to learning, as you know; nay, in former years, to that Pagan learning which is so attractive to you, though of late years we devote ourselves to producing editions of the Fathers of the Church. But even this you must keep yourself from.