CHAPTER CLXIII.

AN OPINION OF EL VENERABLE PADRE MAESTRO FRAY LUIS DE GRANADA, AND A PASSAGE QUOTED FROM HIS WORKS, BECAUSE OF THE PECULIAR BENEFIT TO WHICH PERSONS OF A CERTAIN DENOMINATION WILL FIND THEMSELVES ENTITLED UPON READING OR HEARING IT READ.

        Chacun tourne en réalités,
Autant qu'il peut, ses propres songes;
    L'homme est de glace aux vérités,
Il est de feu pour les mensonges.
                                                   LA FONTAINE.

The translated extract in the preceding Chapter from the most eloquent of the Portuguese preachers, el mismissimo Vieyra, en su mesma mesmedad, as he is called in Fray Gerundio, brings to my mind the most eloquent and the most popular of the Spanish divines, P. M. Luis de Granada. He held an opinion wherein, (as will appear hereafter) the Philosopher of Doncaster did not agree with him, that every thing under the sky was created for man directly or indirectly, either for his own use, or for the use of those creatures which minister to it; for says the Spaniard if he does not eat mosquitoes he eats the birds that eat them; if he does not eat the grass of the field, the cattle graze there that are necessary for his use.

I have a very particular reason for giving the famous and Venerable Dominican's opinion in his own words.

Todo quanto ay debaxo del Cielo, ò es para el hombre, ò para cosas de que se ha de servir el hombre; porque si el no come el mosquito que buela por el ayre, come lo el pajaro de que el se mantiene; y si el no pace la yerva del campo, pacela el ganado, de que el tiene necessidad.

My reason for transcribing this sentence in its original language, is that by so doing I might confer a great act of kindness upon every Roman Catholick who reads the present Chapter. For be it known unto every such reader, that by perusing it, he becomes entitled to an indulgence of an hundred days, granted by D. Pasqual Aragon, Cardinal by the Title of Santa Balbina, and Archbishop of Toledo; and moreover to eighteen several indulgences of forty days each, granted by eighteen most illustrious and most reverend Lords Archbishops and Bishops; such indulgences having been proclaimed, para los que leyeren, ò oyeren leer qualquier capitulo, parrafo, ò periodo de lo que escrivio el dicho V. P. M. Fray Luis de Granada.

It might be a question for the casuists whether a good papist reading the paragraph here presented to him, and not assenting to the opinion expressed therein would be entitled to this discount of eight hundred and twenty days from his time due in Purgatory. But if he accords with the Venerable Dominican, he can no more doubt his own right to participate in the Episcopal and Archiepiscopal grants, than he can call in question the validity of the grants themselves.