After a gracious
invocation of many saints and angels, the very elect of the company
of heaven, Dom Gregory, in a fine spirit of rectitude, proceeds to
applaud the Count of Montcorbier for the high example he set to his
fellow-men. Here, in effect says the worthy churchman, was a man
who, having passed the flower of his life in squalor and all manner
of ignobilities, still kept in a sense the whiteness of his soul and
allowed the brightness of the celestial flame to burn, faintly
indeed but unextinguished, on the altar of his heart. How many men,
asks Dom Gregory, glowing with a pious gratification, how many men
who in humility have dreamed that they might under serener stars and
happier auspices do great deeds and win honourable honours, would,
if put to the proof, show themselves as splendid in prosperity as
they dreamed themselves in adversity? Master Fran?ois Villon, he
goes on to say, is the loveliest example known to him of a man, who,
having always believed in himself with a great belief, did, on being
put to the test, prove that his belief was founded, not on the
shifting sands of vanity and vain glory, but on the solid granite of
good faith and the inestimable doctrines of the church.
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