it becomes us to explore the dangers that will
attend its peace, and to avoid them if we can.

Few of us here, and fewer still in proportion of our constituents,
will doubt that, by rejecting, all those dangers will be
aggravated. . . .

ST. ANSELM (1032-1109)

St. Anselm, who has been called the acutest thinker and profoundest
theologian of his day, was born in Piedmont about 1032. Educated
under the celebrated Lanfranc, he went to England in 1093 and became
Archbishop of Canterbury. He was banished by William Rufus as a
result of a conflict between royal and ecclesiastical prerogative.
He died in 1109. Neale calls him the last of the great fathers
except St. Bernard, and adds that "he probably possessed the
greatest genius of all except St. Augustine."

The sermon here given, the third of the sixteen extant, is given
entire from Neale's translation. It is one of the best examples of
the Middle-Age style of interpreting all Scripture as metaphor and
parable. It contains, moreover, a number of striking passages, such
as, "It is a proof of great virtue to struggle with happiness."

THE SEA OP LIFE

"And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship,
and to go before him to the other side, while he sent the multitude
away." (Matt, xiv, 22.)

In this section, according to its mystical interpretation, we have a
summary description of the state of the Church, from the coming of
the Savior to the end of the world. For the Lord constrained his
Disciples to get into a ship, when he committed the Church to the
government of the Apostles and their followers. And thus to go
before him unto the other side,--that is, to bear onwards towards
the haven of the celestial country, before he himself should
entirely depart from the world. For, with his elect, and on account
of his elect, he ever remains here until the consummation of all
things; and he is preceded to the other side of the sea of this
world by those who daily pass hence to the Land of the Living. And
when he shall have sent all that are his to that place, then,
leaving the multitude of the reprobate, and no longer warning them
to be converted, but giving them over to perdition, he will depart
hence that he may be with his elect alone in the kingdom.

Whence it is added, "while he sent the multitude away." For in the
end of the world he will "send away the multitude" of his enemies,
that they may then be hurried by the Devil to ever