THE LIFE OF ST. MALACHY PREFACE 1. It is indeed always worth while to portray the illustrious lives of the saints, that they may serve as a mirror and an example, and give, as it were, a relish to the life of men on earth. For by this means in some sort they _live_ among us, even _after death_,[101] and many of those who _are dead while they live_[102] are challenged and recalled by them to true life. But now especially is there need for it because holiness is rare, and it is plain that our age is lacking in men. So greatly, in truth, do we perceive that lack to have increased in our day that none can doubt that we are smitten by that saying, _Because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold_;[103] and, as I suppose, he has come or is at hand of whom it is written, _Want shall go before his face_.[104] If I mistake not, Antichrist is he whom famine and sterility of all good both precedes and accompanies. Whether therefore it is the herald of one now present or the harbinger of one who shall come immediately, the _want_ is evident. I speak not of the crowd, I speak not of the vile multitude of _the children of this world_:[105] I would have you lift up your eyes upon the very _pillars_[106] of the Church. Whom can you show me, even of the number of those who seem to be _given for a light to the Gentiles_,[107] that in his lofty station is not rather a smoking wick than a blazing lamp? And, says One, _if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness_![108] Unless perchance, which I do not believe, you will say that they shine who _suppose that gain is godliness_;[109] who in the Lord's inheritance _seek not the things which are_ the Lord's, but rather _their own_.[110] Why do I say _their own_? He would be perfect and holy, even while he seeks his own and retains his own, who should restrain his heart and hands from the things of others. But let him remember, who seems to himself to have advanced perhaps thus far, that the same degree of holiness is demanded even of a gentile.[111] Are not _soldiers_ bidden to _be content with their wages_ that they may be saved?[112] But it is a great thing for a doctor of the Church if he be as one of the soldiers; or, _if_, in truth (as the prophet speaks to their reproach), _it be as with the people so with the priest_.[113] Hideous! Is it so indeed? Is he rightly to be esteemed highest who, falling from the highest rank can scarce cleave to the lowest, that he be not engulfed in the abyss? Yet how rare is even such a man among the clergy! Whom, likewise, do you give me who is content with necessaries, who despises superfluities? Yet the law has been enjoined beforehand by the Apostles on the successors of the Apostles, _Having_ food _and_ raiment, _let us be therewith content_.[114] Where is this rule? We see it in books, but not in men. But you have [the saying] about the righteous man, that _the law of his God is in his heart_,[115] not in a codex. Nor is that the