VIII.

(See p. 391, [56]note 18.)

He passes to a demonstration of the superiority of Christian continence over the sort of self-constraint lauded by Stoics and other philosophers. God only can enable man to practice a genuine continence, not merely contending with depraved lusts, but eradicating them. Here follow some interesting examples drawn from the brahmins and fakirs of India; interesting tokens, by the way, of the assaults the Gospel had already made upon their strongholds about the Ganges.