Albert the Great, of the Order of Friar-Preachers; His Life and Scholastic Labours. from Original Documents (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. STRUGGLES OF ALBERT IN HIS CHOICE OF A VOCATION? HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE ORDER OF FRIAR-PREACHEKS. The moment was now come for him to determine on a state of life. Albert had lived long enough under the beautiful peristyle of general science; he had reached the age when it behoved him to think seriously of the future, and to choose between the study of law, which would lead him to the highest political dignities, and the service of the Church, whose preferments were not less splendid. There was in the latter domain a career on which he had often dwelt?the religious life, which by its mysterious charms attracted his beautiful and great soul. Moral sufferings, those redoubtable forerunners of a new life, occasioned him then strange conflicts. He reflected unceasingly on the post he was destined to occupy in the world, without being able to decide onanything. He relied not on himself, but turned to God, and besought Him with tears to make known to him his true vocation. One day, while he was in the Church of the Dominicans, the holy Virgin, before whose statue he knelt, seemed to address him in these words: " Albert, my son! leave the world, and enter the Order of Friar-Preachers, whose foundation I obtained of my Divine Son for the salvation of the world. Thou shalt apply thyself to the sciences according to the prescriptions of the Rule; and God will fill thee with such wisdom that the whole Church shall be illumined by thy erudite books."1 This revelation from on high has received from the pen of historians a character of high importance, and is painted in various colours. We cannot, indeed, deny its possibility without deserting the domain of faith and rejecting the evidences of history, which frequently relate similar facts in the lives of the Saints. ...