is day, and as learned and
polished as he was pious,--like Jerome after him, proved himself a great
legislator and administrator, including in his comprehensive view both
Christian principles and the necessities of the times, and adapting his
institution to both.

One of the most obvious, flagrant, and universal evils of the day was
devotion to money-making in order to purchase sensual pleasures. It
pervaded Roman life from the time of Augustus. The vow of poverty,
therefore, was a stern, lofty, disdainful protest against the most
dangerous and demoralizing evil of the Empire. It hurled scorn, hatred,
and defiance on this overwhelming evil, and invoked the aid of
Christianity. It was simply the earnest affirmation and belief that
money could not buy the higher joys of earth, and might jeopardize the
hopes of heaven. It called to mind the greatest examples; it showed that
the great teachers of mankind, the sages and prophets of history, had
disdained money as the highest good; that riches exposed men to great
temptation, and lowered the standard of morality and virtue,--"how
hardly shall they who have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" It
appealed to the highest form of self-sacrifice; it arrayed itself
against a vice which was undermining society. And among truly Christian
people this new application of Christ's warnings against the dangers of
wealth excited enthusiasm. It was like enlisting in the army of Christ
against his greatest enemies. Make any duty clear and imperious to
Christian people, and they will generally conform to it. So the world
saw one of the most impressive spectacles of all history,--the rich
giving up their possessions to follow the example and injunctions of
Christ. It was the most signal test of Christian obedience. It prompted
Paula, the richest lady of Christian antiquity, to devote the revenues
of an entire city, which she owned, to the cause of Christ; and the
approbation of Jerome, her friend, was a sufficient recompense.

The vow of Chastity was equally a protest against one of the
characteristic vices of the day, as well as a Christian virtue. Luxury
and pleasure-seeking lives had relaxed the restraints of home and the
virtues of earlier days. The evils of concubinage were shameless and
open throughout the empire, which led to a low estimate of female virtue
and degraded the sex. The pagan poets held up woman as a subject of
scorn and scarcasm. On no subject were the apostles more ur