The same fallacy has conciliated veneration to the religious orders.
When we behold a man abdicating the hope of terrestrial possessions, and
precluding himself, by an irrevocable vow, from the pursuit and
acquisition of all that his fellow-beings consider as worthy of wishes
and endeavours, we are immediately struck with the purity, abstraction,
and firmness of his mind, and regard him as wholly employed in securing
the interests of futurity, and devoid of any other care than to gain, at
whatever price, the surest passage to eternal rest.
Yet, what can the votary be justly said to have lost of his present
happiness? If he resides in a convent, he converses only with men whose
condition is the same with his own; he has, from the munificence of the
founder, all the necessaries of life, and is safe from that destitution,
which Hooker declares to be "such an impediment to virtue, as, till it
be removed, suffereth not the mind of man to admit any other care." All
temptations to envy and competition are shut out from his retreat; he is
not pained with the sight of unattainable dignity, nor insulted with the
bluster of insolence, or the smile of forced familiarity. If he wanders
abroad, the sanctity of his character amply compensates all other
distinctions; he is seldom seen but with reverence, nor heard but with
submission.
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