Claud. in i.

Cons. Stilich. ii. 150.

Canterbury
Tales, The
Perfone's

Prologue.

ference, not a little fullennefs, and fome inaptitude to grasp a proffered benefit, left it should leave a tang behind it. But, for this we have to thank ourselves. We were fo long in doing any thing, in the way of advance, for the people, that they thought we never intended to do any thing. When done at last, they were fufpicious, and thought a demand would be made in return.

Scis, nulla placere

Munera, quæ metuens illis, quos fpreverit, offert
Serus, et incaffum fervati prodigus auri.'

Analyze the fubject, and you will find that
fomething of this fort lies at the root of un-
willingness to receive a long-deferred benefit.
This is a conclufion I have arrived at with pain,
-under real felf-cenfure and self-correction.

'But natheless this meditation
I put it as under correction
Of clerks, for I am not textual;

I take but the fentence, trufteth me wel:
Therefore, I make a proteftation

That I wil ftanden to correction.'

I am very well aware," continued the Old Vicar, "that the Sufpicions as well as the Superftitions of the People ftill imply Ignorance, as may not inopportunely be set forward in the next chapter, but we must

not fuppofe that educated people are not fuperftitious also. The truth is (to advert to the matter of Superftition), there is an under voice of it in every human breast,

'Parvæ murmura vocis

Qualia de pelagi, fi quis procul audiat, undis
Effe folent;'-

looked well to, and checked, it may be
moulded into good;-but left unchecked and
allowed to run wild, it leads, in rich or poor,
to all forts of evil. Overruled by fuperfti-
tious vanities' the rich become fimply flaves
and dotards,—whilst the poor, if their advifer
be a cunning one, with his own and not their
interest in view, run into all forts of abfurdities,
and will jump over a precipice willingly, as
the shepherds in the German ftory. Not
twenty years ago this was clearly illustrated at
Boughton-under-Blean, and I applied to the
cafe the lines of Spenfer in his Teares of the
Muses.

For he that is of reafon's fkill bereft,

And wants the staffe of wisdom him to staye,
Is like a fhip in midft of tempeft left,
Withouten helme or pilot her to stay;
Full fad and dreadful is that fhip's event:
So is the man that wants intendiment !" "

Ovid. Met. xii. 49.

Ps. xxxi. 7. In aтaιóτnτas διακενής.

the LXX. ματαιότητας

Calderon,
Pfiquis &
Cupido, Aut.

Sacr. ii. p. 54.
Longfellow,
The Golden
Legend.

Adam Bede, i. 87.

Tacit. Annal. i. 28.

Contemplations, "Ahaband Benhadad," Vol. iii. 1278. Folio.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The Superftitions of the People.

"Cada una eftà en fu error
Obftinado, torpe, ciego."

"So long as the boaftful human mind
Confents in fuch mills as this to grind,
I fit very firmly on my throne.

Of a truth it almoft makes me laugh,
To fee men leaving the golden grain

To gather in piles the pitiful chaff,

That old Peter Lombard thrashed with brain,

To have it caught up, and toffed again

On the horns of the Dumb Ox of Cologne."

"Adam was not a man to be gratuitoufly fuperftitious, but he had the blood of the peafant in him, as well as of the artizan; and a peasant can no more help believing in a traditional fuperftition, than a horse can help trembling when he fees a camel."

"Ut funt mobiles ad fuperftitionem perculfæ femel mentes."

AKE Superftition in its worst sense, and what Bishop Hall fays is true to the letter. "Superftition infatuates the heart out of measure, neither is there any fancy fo abfurd and monftrous which credulous infidelity is not ready

to entertain with applaufe." Happily fheer, blank infidelity is rarely met with, however evil men's lives are, and however much they fall fhort in their practice. A man may fell his foul for money, for place, for ambition, for any mean thing,-but the moment he lofes self-respect he is a poor creature, fold under fin, looked narrowly upon by his fellowcreatures, and never daring to look inwardly within himself, because a small still voice, fpeaking louder than all the thunders of Sinai, fays to him, "I have got all this money,— but I have not got happiness!" And the heathen's echoing verfe is vaftly true,

"Auriculas afini Midas rex habet."

Pers. Sat. i. 121.
Monente Cor-

non habet?

All that Midas has is gold-but he has the nuto. Quis ears of an Afs!

Пdvтes dè beŵv

χατέουσ' ἄνpwo. Odyss. iii. 48.

The fimple truth is, the heart of man is too weak to reft upon itself. Lean it must on fomething, as Naaman's mafter leant on him when he went "into the houfe of Rimmon to 2 Kings v. 18. worship there." Weak we are, and weak we muft needs confefs ourselves to be, when we fall, as we so often do, before the temptations which affail us. One time or another each one has full reason to know of his own im

Keble's Chriftian
Year, Tuesday
in Whitfun
Week.

Ps. lxxiv. 20.

potence and inability. Even when he thinks
himself the moft fecure, his ftrength faileth
him, and he finds that his own fufficiency is a
thing of nought, and but as vanity. No man
living, used to take counsel with himself, but
hath found it fo. Ay! even when he has
had all things to his heart's content,—when
his defires have been granted,-his will obeyed,
-his ambition glutted,—even then there has
been a void and an emptinefs within him,—a
finking, like what a landfman feels on fhip-
board; and this, till it be remedied, he finds
not how to bear, and he is ill at ease, and he
cafteth him about here and there for that quiet
of mind, which is not of earth, but is of heaven,
though he knows it not for lack of spiritual
difcernment, and for that he apprehendeth not
the truth as it is in Jefus.

“And yet in Him the fimpleft fwain
May read his homely leffon plain.”

Still, fo it is, and hence it comes about also
that the untutored and favage nations of the
earth are in bondage to fyftems of religion
which tend to fear only,―abounding in cruel
and unholy rites which Christianity is free
from. And striking are the words of David
in the Pfalm. "Have refpect unto the covenant,