aspire to, and seek wealth without avidity. This ambition is a laudable
one, for it does not exaggerate the value of the world's goods, would
not resort to injustice, and has not the characteristic tenacity of
covetousness. There is order in this desire for plenty. It is the great
mover of activity in life; it is good because it is natural, and
honorable because of its motives.



CHAPTER XI.
LUST.

PRIDE resides principally in the mind, and thence sways over the entire
man; avarice proceeds from the heart and affections; lust has its seat
in the flesh. By pride man prevaricating imitates the angel of whose
nature he partakes; avarice is proper to man as being a composite of
angelic and animal natures; lust is characteristic of the brute pure
and simple. This trinity of concupiscence is in direct opposition to
the Trinity of God--to the Father, whose authority pride would destroy;
to the Son, whose voluntary stripping of the divinity and the poverty
of whose life avarice scorns and contemns to the Holy Ghost, to whom
lust is opposed as the flesh is opposed to the spirit. This is the
mighty trio that takes possession of the whole being of man, controls
his superior and inferior appetites, and wars on the whole being on
God. And lust is the most ignoble of the three.

Strictly speaking, it is not here question of the commandments. They
prescribe or forbid acts of sin--thoughts, words or deeds; lust is a
passion, a vice or inclination, a concupiscence. It is not an act. It
does not become a sin while it remains in this state of pure