The Book of Religions Part 55

He died April 18th, 1797, aged 46 years.

Twas thine to preach, with animated zeal, The glories of the resurrection morn, When sin, death, h.e.l.l, the power of Christ shall feel, And light, life, immortality, be born."

Saint Genevieve.

Born at Nanterre, about five miles from Paris, in the year 423, about the time of Pharamond, the first king of France. St. Germain, bishop of Auxerre, observing in her, when yet very young, a particular disposition to sanct.i.ty, advised her to take a vow of perpetual virginity, which she accordingly did in the presence of the bishop of Paris. After the death of her parents, she went to Paris. The city was about to be deserted, when Attila, with his Huns, broke into France; but Genevieve a.s.sured the inhabitants of complete security, if they would seek it by fervent prayers. Attila took his course from Champaigne to Orleans, returned thence into Champaigne, without touching Paris, and was defeated in 451.

By this event, Genevieve's reputation was established. In a time of famine, she went along the River Seine, from city to city, and soon returned with twelve large vessels loaded with grain, which she distributed gratuitously among the sufferers. This increased her authority, and she was highly honored by Merovaeus and Chilperic. Nothing, however, contributed more to her reputation for sanct.i.ty, than the circ.u.mstance, that, from her fifteenth to her fiftieth year, she ate nothing but barley-bread, except that she took some beans every two or three weeks, and, after her fiftieth year, some fish and milk. In 460, she built a church over the graves of St. Dionysius Rusticus and Eleutherius, near the village of Chasteville, where Dagobert afterwards founded the abbey of St. Denys. She died in 499 or 501, and her body was placed in the subterraneous chapel which St. Denys had consecrated to the apostles Paul and Peter. Clovis, by her request, built a church over it, which was afterwards called by her name, as was also the abbey that was founded there. Another church, consecrated to this saint, was built adjoining to the church of Notre Dame. Her relics are preserved in the former. The church celebrates the third of January, the day on which she died, in honor of her.

Gilbert Burnet.

Bishop of Salisbury, was born at Edinburgh, in the year 1643. He was carefully educated by his father; and, having a strong const.i.tution and a prodigious memory, he applied himself closely to study, and acquired a great portion of learning and knowledge, which he seemed to have ready for all occasions. He travelled through France, Italy, and Holland, where he formed connections with many of the greatest persons of his time, by whom he was much respected for his talents and virtues. At Amsterdam, he became acquainted with the leading men of the different persuasions tolerated in the United Provinces-Calvinists, Arminians, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Brownists, Roman Catholics, and Unitarians; amongst each of which, he used frequently to declare, he met with men of such unfeigned piety and virtue, that he became strongly fixed in a principle of universal charity, and an invincible abhorrence of all severities on account of religious opinions.

The following sentiments, which he solemnly uttered towards the conclusion of his days, are very expressive of the nature and power of true religion, and of its influence upon his own mind:-

"I recommend," he observes, "to all sorts of men, in the most serious manner, the study and practice of religion, as that which is the most important of all things, and which is both the light of the world, and the salt of the earth.

"Nothing so opens our faculties, and composes and directs the whole man, as an inward sense of G.o.d; of his authority over us; of the laws he has set us; of his eye ever upon us; of his hearing our prayers, a.s.sisting our endeavors, watching over our concerns; of his being to judge, and reward or punish, us in another state, according to what we have done in this.

Nothing will give us such a detestation of sin, and such a sense of the goodness of G.o.d, and of our obligations to holiness, as a right understanding and firm belief of the Christian religion.

"By living according to the rules of religion, a man becomes the wisest, the best, and the happiest creature that he is capable of being. Honest industry, the employing of time well, a constant sobriety, an undefiled purity and chast.i.ty, with continued serenity, are the best preservatives, too, of life and health; so that, take a man as an individual, religion is his guard, his perfection, his beauty, and his glory. This will make him a light in the world, shining brightly, and enlightening many round about him.

"Thus religion, if truly received and sincerely adhered to, would prove the greatest of all blessings to a nation. But by religion I understand something more than receiving particular doctrines, though ever so true, or professing them, and engaging to support them, even with zeal and eagerness. What signify the best doctrines, if men do not live suitably to them; if they have not a due influence upon their thoughts and their lives? Men of bad lives, with sound opinions, are self-condemned, and lie under a highly-aggravated guilt.

"By religion I do not mean an outward compliance with forms and customs, in going to church, to prayers, to sermons, and to sacraments, with an external show of devotion; or, which is more, with some inward forced good thoughts, in which many satisfy themselves, while these have no visible effect on their lives, nor any inward force to control and rectify their appet.i.tes, pa.s.sions, and secret designs. These customary performances, how good and useful soever when understood and rightly directed, are of little value when men rest on them, and think, because they do them, they have acquitted themselves of their duty, though they still continue proud, covetous, full of deceit, envy, and malice. Even secret prayers, the most effectual means, are designed for a higher end; which is, to possess our minds with such a constant and present sense of divine truths, as may make these live in us, and govern us, and draw down such a.s.sistance, as to exalt and sanctify our natures.

"So that, by religion, I mean such a sense of divine truth as enters into a man, and becomes the spring of a new nature within him; reforming his thoughts and designs; purifying his heart; sanctifying and governing his whole deportment, his words as well as his actions; convincing him that it is not enough not to be scandalously vicious, or to be innocent in his conversation, but that he must be entirely, uniformly, and constantly, pure and virtuous, animated with zeal to be still better and better, more eminently good and exemplary.

"This is true religion, which is the perfection of human nature, and the joy and delight of every one that feels it active and strong within him.

It is true, this is not arrived at all at once, and it will have an unhappy alloy, hanging long even about a good man; but, as those ill mixtures are the perpetual grief of his soul, so that it is his chief care to watch over and to mortify them, he will be in a continual progress, still gaining ground upon himself; and as he attains to a degree of purity, he will find a n.o.ble flame of life and joy growing up in him. Of this I write with a greater concern and emotion, because I have felt it to be the true, and, indeed, the only joy which runs through a man's heart and life. It is this which has been, for many years, my greatest support.

I rejoice daily in it. I feel from it the earnest of that supreme joy which I want and long for; and I am sure there is nothing else which can afford any true and complete happiness."

This eminent scholar, Christian, and divine, departed this life on the seventeenth of March, 1714.