ling;
which destroy and lay waste all the generous sentiments of virtue in the
heart, and sow there the seeds of every vice, which extend their baneful
roots over the whole soil. Who seeks nourishment from poisons? What food
is to the body, that our thoughts and reflections are to the mind: by
them the affections of the soul are nourished. The chameleon changes its
color as it is affected by sadness, anger, or joy; or by the color upon
which it sits: and we see an insect borrow its lustre and hue from the
plant or leaf upon which it feeds. In like manner, what our meditations
and affections are, such will our souls become, either holy and
spiritual or earthly and carnal. By pious reading the mind is instructed
and enlightened, and the affections of the heart are purified and
inflamed. It is recommended by St. Paul as the summary of spiritual
advice.[2] Devout persons never want a spur to assiduous reading or
meditation. They are insatiable in this exercise, and, according to the
golden motto of Thomas a Kempis, they find their chief delight _in a
closet, with a good book_.[3] Worldly and tepid Christians stand
certainly in the utmost need of this help to virtue. The world is a
whirlpool of business, pleasure, and sin. Its torrent is always beating
upon their hearts, ready to break in and bury them under its flood,
unless frequent pious reading and consideration oppose a strong fence to
its waves. The more deeply a person is immersed in its tumultuous cares,
so much the greater ought to be his solicitude to find leisure to
breathe, after the fatigues and dissipation of business and company; to
plunge his heart, by secret prayer, in the ocean of the divine
immensity, and, by pious reading, to afford his soul some spiritual
refection; as the wearied husbandman, returning from his labor, recruits
his spent vigor and exhausted strength, by allowing his body necessary
refreshment and repose.

The lives of the saints furnish the Christian with a daily spiritual
entertainment, {046} which is not less agreeable than affecting and
instructive. For in sacred biography the advantages of devotion and
piety are joined with the most attractive charms of history. The method
of forming men to virtue by example, is, of all others, the shortest,
the most easy, and the best adapted to all circumstances and
dispositions. Pride recoils at precepts, but example instructs without
usurping the authoritative air of a master; for, by example, a m