I am afraid to decide on either part. He
that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a
monastery. But perhaps everyone is not able to stem the
temptations of public life, and if he cannot conquer he may
properly retreat. Some have little power to do good, and have
likewise little strength to resist evil. Many are weary of the
conflicts with adversity, and are willing to eject those passions
which have long busied them in vain. And many are dismissed by age
and diseases from the more laborious duties of society. In
monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered, the
weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. Those retreats of
prayer and contemplation have something so congenial to the mind of
man, that perhaps there is scarcely one that does not purpose to
close his life in pious abstraction, with a few associates serious
as himself."
"Such," said Pekuah, "has often been my wish, and I have heard the
Princess declare that she should not willingly die in a crowd."
"The liberty of using harmless pleasures," proceeded Imlac, "will
not be disputed, but it is still to be examined what pleasures are
harmless.
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