[2]
Even in the humblest curacy, he regulates his budget monthly, spending
his money without consulting anybody. When not on duty, his time is
his own. He can dine out, order for himself at home a special dish,
allow himself delicacies. If he does not possess every comfort, he
has most of them, and thus, like a lay functionary, he may if he
chooses get ahead in the world, obtain promotion to a better curacy,
become irremovable, be appointed canon and sometimes mount upward,
very high, to the topmost rank. Society has a hold on him through all
these worldly purposes; he is too much mixed up with it to detach
himself from it entirely; very often his spiritual life droops or
proves abortive under so many terrestrial preoccupations. - If the
Christian desires to arrive at the alibi and dwell in the life beyond,
another system of existence is essential for him, entailing a
protection against two temptations, that is to say the abandonment of
two dangerous liberties, one consisting in the power by which, being
an owner of property, he disposes as he likes of what belongs to him,
and the other consisting in the power by which, being master of his
acts, he arranges as he pleases his daily occupations.
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