is so great happiness than
if he had seen him a thousand times king of the whole earth, and his
life and kingdom secured to him for ten thousand years. What treasures
would not have been well employed to purchase for him such a soul as his
was rendered by virtue, could this blessing have been procured for
money? He displays the falsehood of worldly pleasure; the inconstancy,
anxiety, trouble, grief, and bitterness of all its enjoyments, and says
that no king can give so sensible a joy as the very sight of a virtuous
man inspires. As he speaks to a Pagan, he makes a comparison between
Plato and Dionysius the tyrant; then mentions an acquaintance of his
own. This was a holy monk, whom his Pagan father, who was a rich
nobleman, incensed at his choice of that state, disinherited; but was at
length so overcome by the virtue of this son, that he preferred him to
all his other children, who were accomplished noblemen in the world,
often saying that none of them was worthy to be his slave; and he
honored and respected him as if he had been his own father. In the third
book, St. Chrysostom directs his discourse to a Christian father, whom
he threatens with the judgment of Hell, if he withdrew his children from
this state of perfection, in which they would have become suns in
heaven, whereas, if they were saved in the world, their glory would
probably be only that of stars. He inveighs against parents, who, by
their discourse and example, instil into their children a spirit of
vanity, and sow in their tender minds the seeds of covetousness, and all
those sins which overrun the world. He compares monks to angels, in
their uninterrupted joy and attention to God; and observes that men in
the world are bound to observe the same divine law with the monks, but
cannot so easily acquit themselves of this obligation, as he that is
hampered with cords cannot run so well as he that is loose and at
liberty. He exhorts parents to breed up their children for some years in
monasteries, and to omit nothing in forming them to perfect virtue. In
his elegant short treatise, entitled A Comparison between a King and a
Monk, t. 1, p. 116, he beautifully shows that a pious monk is
incomparably more honorable, more glorious, and more happy than the
greatest monarch, by enjoying the favor of heaven, and possessing God;
by the empire over himself and his own passions, by which he is king in
his own breast, exercising the most glorious command; by the sweetn