The First Chapter
IMITATING CHRIST AND DESPISING ALL
VANITIES ON EARTH

HE WHO follows Me, walks not in darkness," says the Lord.1 By these words of
Christ we are advised to imitate His life and habits, if we wish to be truly enlightened
and free from all blindness of heart. Let our chief effort, therefore, be to study the life of
Jesus Christ.
The teaching of Christ is more excellent than all the advice of the saints, and he
who has His spirit will find in it a hidden manna. Now, there are many who hear the
Gospel often but care little for it because they have not the spirit of Christ. Yet whoever
wishes to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern his whole life on that
of Christ.
What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility,
you displease the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a
virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how
to define it. For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the
principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of
vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone.
This is the greatest wisdom -- to seek the kingdom of heaven through contempt
of the world. It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish. It is vanity
also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride. It is vanity to follow the lusts of the
body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come. It is vanity to
wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life. It is vanity to be concerned
with the present only and not to make provision for things to come. It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides.
Often recall the proverb: "The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled
with hearing."2 Try, moreover, to turn your heart from the love of things visible and
bring yourself to things invisible. For they who follow their own evil passions stain their
consciences and lose the grace of God.

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Simple question.
Do his ideas only lead to the exultation of the church if the church is already a dominant power? He talks so much about humility, what then, are Catholics to do in the battle for the church. His humility seems out of place when necessity calls for action.