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He speaks, or rather preaches, from the point of view, not of the

ecclesiastic, but of the layman, although, as a good Catholic, he

is willing to acknowledge that in certain respects the Empire

must submit to the Church. The beginning and end of all his noble

reflections and of his arguments, good and bad, is the aspiration

'that in this little plot of earth belonging to mortal man life

may pass in freedom and peace.' So inextricably is his vision of

the future bound up with the beliefs and circumstances of his own

age.