ably to every heart, That this Earthly Life, and
its riches and possessions, and good and evil hap, are not
intrinsically a reality at all, but _are_ a shadow of realities
eternal, infinite; that this Time-world, as an air-image,
fearfully _emblematic,_ plays and flickers in the grand still
mirror of Eternity; and man's little Life has Duties that are
great, that are alone great, and go up to Heaven and down to
Hell. This, with our poor litanies, we testify and struggle
to testify.

Which, testified or not, remembered by all men, or forgotten by
all men, does verily remain the fact, even in Arkwright Joe
Manton ages! But it is incalculable, when litanies have grown
obsolete; when _fodercorns,_ _avragiums,_ and all human dues and
reciprocities have been fully changed into one great due of _cash
payment;_ and man's duty to man reduces itself to handing him
certain metal coins, or covenanted money-wages, and then shoving
him out of doors; and man's duty to God becomes a cant, a doubt,
a dim inanity, a 'pleasure of virtue' or such like; and the
thing a man does infinitely fear (the real _Hell_ of a man) is
'that he do not make money and advance himself,'--I say, it is
incalculable what a change has introduced itself everywhere into
human affairs! How human affairs shall now circulate everywhere
not healthy life-blood in them, but, as it were, a detestable
copperas banker's ink; and all is grown acrid, divisive,
threatening dissolution; and the huge tumultuous Life of Society
is galvanic, devil-ridden, too truly possessed by a devil! For,
in short, Mammon _is_ not a god at all; but a devil, and even a
very despicable devil. Follow the Devil faithfully, you are sure
enough to _go_ to the Devil: whither else _can_ you go?--In such
situations, men look back with a kind of mournful recognition
even on poor limited Monk-figures, with their poor litanies; and
reflect, with Ben Jonson, that soul is indispensable, some degree
of soul, even to save you the expense of salt!--

For the rest, it must be owned, we Monks of St. Edmundsbury are
but a limited class of creatures, and seem to have a somewhat
dull life of it. Much given to idle gossip; having indeed no
other work, when our chanting is over. Listless gossip, for most
part, and a mitigated slander; the fruit of idleness, not of
spleen. We are dull, insipid men, many of us; easy-minded;
whom prayer and digestion of food will avail for a life. We have
t