fts be avoided; for receiving them is a sin. The silkworm dies of
its riches.

It is not proper to rebuke or even blame wrong acts of gods or priests
or seers; though no one is justified in following them in these acts.

Virtue is better than everlasting life; kingdom, sons, renown, and
wealth all put together do not make up one-sixteenth part of the value
of virtue.

The greatest sin that a king can commit is atoned for by sacrifices
accompanied with large gifts [cows, etc.] to the priests.

* * * * *

SIR THOMAS BROWNE

RELIGIO MEDICI

Sir Thomas Browne, English essayist, came of a Cheshire
family, but was born in London on October 19, 1605. Educated
at Oxford, where he graduated in 1626, he next studied
medicine at the great universities of Montpelier, Padua, and
Leyden, and in 1637 went to live at Norwich, where he remained
until his death on October 19, 1682. He was happily married in
1641, and was knighted by Charles II. in 1671. Sir Thomas
Browne is one of the greatest figures in English literary
history. He had extraordinary learning, a magnificent style, a
certain dry humour, and, above all, great power and nobility
of mind. In his two most valued works, "Religio Medici," or
"Religion of a Physician," published in 1643, and "Urn
Burial," in 1658, he deals with the greatest of all themes,
the mysteries of faith and of human destiny. The "Religio
Medici," written about 1635, was not at first intended for
publication; but the manuscript had been handed about and
copied, and the appearance, in 1642, of private editions,
forced the author to issue it himself.

_I.--THE BROAD-MINDED CHRISTIAN_

For my religion I dare, without usurpation, assume the honourable style
of a Christian. Not that I merely owe this title to the font, my
education, or the clime wherein I was born; but that having, in my riper
years and confirmed judgment, seen and examined all, I find myself
obliged, by the principles of grace and the law of mine own reason, to
embrace no other name but this.

But, because the name of a Christian is become too general to express
our faith--there being a geography of religion as well as lands--I am of
that reformed new-cast religion, wherein I dislike nothing but the name:
of the same belief our Saviour taught, the apostles disseminated, the
fathers authorised, and