t spring from instinct.

Again, all who are smitten with the love of books think cheaply of the
world and wealth; as Jerome says to Vigilantius: The same man cannot
love both gold and books. And thus it has been said in verse:

No iron-stained hand is fit to handle books,
Nor he whose heart on gold so gladly looks:
The same men love not books and money both,
And books thy herd, O Epicurus, loathe;
Misers and bookmen make poor company,
Nor dwell in peace beneath the same roof-tree.
No man, therefore, can serve both books and Mammon.

The hideousness of vice is greatly reprobated in books, so that he who
loves to commune with books is led to detest all manner of vice. The
demon, who derives his name from knowledge, is most effectually
defeated by the knowledge of books, and through books his multitudinous
deceits and the endless labyrinths of his guile are laid bare to those
who read, lest he be transformed into an angel of light and circumvent
the innocent by his wiles. The reverence of God is revealed to us by
books, the virtues by which He is worshipped are more expressly
manifested, and the rewards are described that are promised by the
truth, which deceives not, neither is deceived. The truest likeness of
the beatitude to come is the contemplation of the sacred writings, in
which we behold in turn the Creator and the creature, and draw from
streams of perpetual gladness. Faith is established by the power of
books; hope is strengthened by their solace, insomuch that by patience
and the consolation of scripture we are in good hope. Charity is not
puffed up, but is edified by the knowledge of true learning, and,
indeed, it is clearer than light that the Church is established upon
the sacred writings.

Books delight us, when prosperity smiles upon us; they comfort us
inseparably when stormy fortune frowns on us. They lend validity to
human compacts, and no serious judgments are propounded without their
help. Arts and sciences, all the advantages of which no mind can
enumerate, consist in books. How highly must we estimate the wondrous
power of books, since through them we survey the utmost bounds of the
world and time, and contemplate the things that are as well as those
that are not, as it were in the mirror of eternity. In books we climb
mountains and scan the deepest gulfs of the abyss; in books we behold
the finny tribes that may not exist outside their native waters,
distinguish the