carnal objects even in things spiritual! What, then, is it that we find mentioned here, as the spirit of vice and the spirit of virtue? Is it what we, in general, call such a vice or such a virtue, or something else, greater than that? We shall not be far wrong if we say that when S. Ephraem prayed to be delivered from the spirit of idleness, of listlessness, and of ambition, and to receive a spirit of temperance and of humility, he had in view actual spirits,—in the first place, evil spirits of
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