bored particularly to encourage true devotion in all persons, but
particularly those of the monastic profession, of which state it is the
very essence and constituent. His letter to his sister Florentina, a
holy virgin, is called his Rule of a Monastic Life. It turns chiefly on
the contempt of the world, and on {480} the exercises of prayer. This
saint also reformed the Spanish liturgy.[3] In this liturgy, and in the
third council of Toledo, in conformity to the eastern churches, the
Nicene creed was appointed to be read at mass, to express a detestation
of the Arian heresy. Other western churches, with the Roman, soon
imitated this devotion. St. Leander was visited by frequent distempers,
particularly the gout, which St. Gregory, who was often afflicted with
the same, writing to him, calls a favor and mercy of heaven. This holy
doctor of Spain died about the year 596, on the 27th of February, as
Mabillon proves from his epitaph. The church of Seville has been a
metropolitan see ever since the third century. The cathedral is the most
magnificent, both as to structure and ornament, of any in all Spain.

* * * * *

The contempt of the world which the gospel so strongly inculcates, and
which St. Leander so eminently practised and taught, it the foundation
of a spiritual life; but is of far greater extent than most Christians
conceive, for it requires no less than a total disengagement of the
affections from earthly things. Those whom God raises to perfect virtue,
and closely unites to himself, must cut off and put away every thing
that can be an obstacle to this perfect union. Their will must be
thoroughly purified from all dross of inordinate affections before it
can be perfectly absorbed in his. This they who are particularly devoted
to the divine service, are especially to take notice of. If this truth
was imprinted in the manner that it ought, in the hearts of those who
enrol themselves in the service of the church, or who live in cloisters,
they would be replenished with heavenly blessings, and the church would
have the comfort of seeing apostles of nations revive among her clergy,
and the monasteries again filled with Antonies, Bennets, and Bernards;
whose sanctity, prayers, and example, would even infuse into many others
the true spirit of Christ, amid the desolation and general blindness of
this unhappy age.

Footnotes:
1. Conc. t. 5, p. 998.
2. Diss. 3. in Conc. Hisp.
3. The c