But the chief merit of his works is, that they make virtue and devotion amiable: he preaches penance, but he shows its rewards; he exhorts to compunction, but he shows the sweetness of pious sorrow; he enforces humility, but he shows the blessedness of a humble heart; he recommends solitude, but he shows that God _is_ where the world is not. No one reads his work who does not perceive the happiness, even in this world, of a holy life, or who does not wish to die the death of a saint. Most readers of it will acknowledge that, sometimes at least, when they have read it, every worldly emotion has died within them, and they have felt themselves in a disposition of mind suited to receive the finest impressions of religion. At the finishing of his work he gave a very edifying instance of humility. The manuscript of the first volume having been submitted to Mr. Challoner, the vicar-apostolic of the London district, he recommended the omission of all the notes, not {031} excepting that beautiful note which gave an account of the writings of St. John Chrysostom. His motive was, that, by being made less bulky, the work might be made less expensive, and, consequently, more generally useful. It is easy to suppose what it must have cost our author to consign to oblivion the fruit of so much labor and so many vigils. He obeyed, however, and to this circumstance it is owing that, in the first edition, the notes in question were omitted. XI. XI. 1. It has been objected to our author's work on the Lives of the Saints, _that the system of devotion which is recommended by it, is, at best, suited to the cloister_. But no work has ever appeared, in which the difference between the duties of a man of the world and the duties of a religious is more strongly pointed out. Whenever the author has occasion to mention any action of any saint, which is extraordinary or singular in its nature he always observes, that it is of a kind rather to be admired than imitated.