You ask me, my sisters, how we can discover whether or not we are making any progress towards perfection. I cannot do better than consult our oracle, Blessed Francis, and answer you in his own words, taken from his eighth Conference. "We can never know what perfection we have reached, for we are like those who are at sea; they do not know whether they are making progress or not, but the pilot knows, knowing the course. So we cannot estimate our own advancement, though we may that of others, for we dare not assure ourselves when we have done a good action that we have done it perfectly—humility forbids us to do so. Nay, even were we able to judge of the virtues of others, we must never determine in our minds that one person is better than another, because appearances are deceitful, and those who seem very virtuous outwardly and in the eyes of creatures, may be less so in the sight of God than others who appear much more imperfect."

I have often heard him say that the multiplicity of means proposed for advancement towards perfection frequently delays the progress of souls. They are like travellers uncertain of the way, and who seeing many roads branching off in different directions stay and waste their time by enquiring here and there which of them they ought to take in order to reach their journey's end. He advised people to confine themselves rather to some special spiritual exercise or virtue, or to some well-chosen book of piety—for example, to the exercise of the presence of God, or of submission to His will, or to purity of intention, or some similar exercise.

Among books, he recommended chiefly, The Spiritual Combat, The Imitation of Jesus Christ, The Method of Serving God, Grenada, Blosius, and such like. Among the virtues, as you know well, his favourites were gentleness and humility, charity—without which others are of no value—being always pre-supposed.

On this subject of advancement towards perfection, he speaks thus in the ninth of his Conferences:

"If you ask me, 'What can I do to acquire the love of God?' I answer, Will; i.e., try to love Him; and instead of setting to work to find out how you can unite your soul to God, put the thing in practice by a frequent application of your mind to Him. I assure you that you will arrive much more quickly at your end by this means than in any other way.

"For the more we pour ourselves out the less recollected we shall be, and the less capable of union with the Divine Majesty, who would have all we are without reserve."

He continues: "One actually finds souls who are so busy in thinking how they shall do a thing that they have no time to do it. And yet, in what concerns our perfection, which consists in the union of our soul with the Divine Goodness, there is no question of knowing much; but only of doing."

Again, in the same Conference, he says: "It seems to me that those of whom we ask the road to Heaven are very right in answering us as those do who tell us that, in order to reach such a place, we must just go on putting one foot before the other, and that by this means we shall arrive where we desire. Walk ever, we say to these souls so desirous of their perfection, walk in the way of your vocation with simplicity, more intent on doing than on desiring. That is the shortest road." "And," he adds, "in aspiring to union with the Beloved, there is no other secret than to do what we aspire to—that is, to labour faithfully in the exercise of Divine love."

[Footnote 1: 1 Cor. ix. 24.]

UPON WHAT IT IS TO LOVE GOD TRULY.

In connection with this subject of the love of God and of our neighbour, I asked our Blessed Father what loving in this sense of the word really was. He replied: "Love is the primary passion of our emotional desires, and a primary element in that emotional faculty which is the will. So that to will is nothing more than to love what is good, and love is the willing or desiring what is good. If we desire good for ourselves we have what is called self-love; if we desire good for another we have the love of friendship."

To love God and our neighbour, then, with the love of charity, which is the love of friendship, is to desire good to God for Himself, and to our neighbour in God and for the love of God. We can desire two sorts of good for God: that which He has, rejoicing that He is what He is, and that nothing can be added to the greatness and to the infinity of His inward perfection; and that which He has not, by wishing it for Him, either effectively, if it is in our power to give it to Him, or by loving and longing, if it is not in our power to give it. For, indeed, there is a good which God desires and which is not His as it should be in perfection. That external good, as it is called, is the good which proceeds from the honour and glory rendered to Him by His creatures, especially by those among them endowed with reason. This is the good which David wishes to God in so many of his Psalms. Among others, in the Praise ye the Lord from the heavens,[1] and in the Bless the Lord, O my soul.[2]

The three children also in the fiery furnace wish this good to God by their canticle: All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord.[3]

If we truly love God we shall try to bring this good to Him through ourselves, surrendering our whole being to Him, and doing all our actions, the indifferent as well as the good, for His glory.

Not content with that, we shall also strive with all our might to make our neighbour serve and love God, so that by all and in all things God may be honoured.

To love our neighbour in God is to rejoice in the good which our neighbour possesses, provided, indeed, that he makes use of it for the divine glory; to render him in his need all the assistance which lies within our power; to be zealous for the welfare of his soul, and to work for it as we do for our own, because God wills and desires it. That is to have true and unfeigned charity, and to love God sincerely and steadfastly for His own sake and our neighbour for the love of Him.

[Footnote 1: Psalm cxlviii. 1.] [Footnote 2: Id. ciii. 1.] [Footnote 3: Dan. iii. 57.]

UPON THE LOVE OF GOD IN GENERAL.

A whole mountain of virtues, if destitute of this living, reigning, and triumphant love, was to Blessed Francis but as a petty heap of stones. He was never weary of inculcating love of God as the supreme motive of every action.

The whole of his Theotimus (The Treatise on the Love of God) breathes this sentiment, and he often told me that it was impossible to insist upon it too strongly in our teaching and advice to our people. "For, in fact," he used to say, "what is the use of running a race if we do not reach the goal, or of drawing the bow if we do not hit the target?" Oh! how many good works are useless as regards the glory of God and the salvation of souls, for want of this motive of charity! And yet, this is the last thing people think of, as if the intention were not the very soul of a good action, and as if God had ever promised to reward works not done for His glory, and not applied to His honour.

ALL FOR LOVE OF GOD.

You know very well how Blessed Francis valued charity, but I will give you, nevertheless, some more of his teaching on this great subject.

To a holy soul who had placed herself under his direction, he said: "We must do all things from love, and nothing from constraint. We must love obedience rather than fear disobedience. I leave you the spirit of liberty: not such as excludes obedience, for that is the liberty of the flesh, but such as excludes constraint, scruples, and over-eagerness. However much you may love obedience and submission, I wish you to suspend for the moment the work in which obedience has engaged you whenever any just or charitable occasion for so doing occurs. This omission will be a species of obedience. Fill up its measure by charity."

From this spirit of holy and Christian liberty originated the saying so often to be met with in his letters: "Keep your heart in peace." That is to say: Beware of hurry, anxiety, and bitterness of heart. These he called the ruin of devotion. He was even unwilling that people should meditate upon the great truths of Death, Judgment and Hell, unless they at the same time reassured themselves by the remembrance of God's love for them. Speaking to a holy soul, he says: "Meditation on the four last things will be useful to you provided that you always end with an act of confidence in God. Never represent to yourself Death or Hell on the one side unless the Cross is on the other; so that when your fears have been excited by the one you may with confidence turn for help to the other." The one point on which he chiefly insisted was that we must fear God from love, not love God from fear. "To love Him from fear," he used to say, "is to put gall into our food and to quench our thirst with vinegar; but to fear Him from love is to sweeten aloes and wormwood."

Assuredly, our own experience convinces us that it is difficult to love those whom we fear, and that it is impossible not to fear with a filial and reverent fear those whom we love.

You find some difficulty, it seems, my sisters, in understanding how all things, as St. Paul says,[1] whether good, bad, or indifferent, can in the end work together for good to those who love God.

To satisfy you, I quote the words of Blessed Francis on this subject in one of his letters. "Since," he says, "God can bring good out of evil, will He not surely do so for those who have given themselves unreservedly to Him? Yes; even sins, from which may God in His goodness keep us, are by His Divine Providence, when we repent of them, changed into good for those who are His. Never would David have been so bowed down with humility if he had not sinned, nor would Magdalene have loved her Saviour so fervently had He not forgiven her so many sins. But He could not have forgiven them had she not committed them."

Again: "Consider, my dear daughter, this great Artificer of mercy, who changes our miseries into graces, and out of the poison of our iniquities compounds a wholesome medicine for our souls. Tell me, then, I beseech you, if God works such wonders with our sins, what will He not effect with our afflictions, with our labours, with the persecutions which we have to endure? No matter what trouble befalls you, nor from what direction it may come, let your soul be at peace, certain that if you truly love God all will turn to good. And though you cannot see the springs which work this marvellous change, rest assured that it will take place.

"If the hand of God touches your eyes with the clay of shame and reproach, it is only to give you clearer sight, and to cause you to be honoured.

"If He should cast you to the ground, as He did St. Paul, it will only be to raise you up again to glory."[2]

[Footnote 1: Rom. viii. 28.] [Footnote 2: Rom. viii. 28.]

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

"All by love, nothing by constraint." This was his favourite motto, and the mainspring of his direction of others. He has often said to me that those who try to force the human will are exercising a tyranny which is hateful to God and man. This was why he had such a horror of those masterful and dominant spirits which insist on being obeyed, bon gre mal gre, and would have every one give way to them. "Those," he often said, "who love to make themselves feared, fear to make themselves loved; and they themselves are more fearful than anyone else: for others only fear them, but they are afraid of every one."

I have often heard him say these striking words: "In the royal galley of divine love there is no galley-slave; all the oarsmen are volunteers." And he expresses the same sentiment in Theotimus, when he says: "Divine love governs the soul with an incomparable sweetness; for no one of the slaves of love is made such by force, but love brings all things under its rule, with a constraint so delightful, that as nothing is so strong as love, nothing also is so sweet as its strength."[1] And in another part of the same book he makes a soul, attracted by the delicious perfume shed by the divine Bridegroom on his path, say:

"Let no one think that Thou draggest me after Thee like an unwilling slave or a lifeless load. Ah! no. Thou drawest me by the odour of Thine ointments; though I follow Thee, it is not that Thou draggest me, but that Thou enticest me. Thy drawing is mighty, but not violent, since its whole force lies in its sweetness. Perfumes draw me to follow them in virtue only of their sweetness. And sweetness, how can it attract but sweetly and pleasantly?"[2] Following out this principle, he never gave a command even to those who were bound to obey him, whether his servants or his clergy, save in the form of a request or suggestion. He held in special veneration, and often inculcated upon me the command of St. Peter: Feed the flock of God which is among you, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre's sake, neither as lording it over the clergy, but being made a pattern of virtue to the flock.[3]

And here, my sisters, I feel that if will be for your profit, although the story is not to my own credit, to relate a circumstance which occurred in the early years of my episcopate. I was young, impetuous, and impatient; eager to reform the abuses and disorders which from time to time I met with in my pastoral visitations. Often, too, I know, I was bitter and harsh when discouraged.

Once in a despairing mood because of the many failures I noticed in myself, and others, I poured forth my lamentations and self-accusations to our Blessed Father, who said: "What a masterful spirit you have! You want to walk upon the wings of the wind. You let yourself be carried away by your zeal, which, like a will-of-the-wisp, will surely lead you over a precipice. Have you forgotten the warning of your patron, St. Peter, not to think you can walk in burning heat?[4] Would you do more than God, and restrain the liberty of the creatures whom God has made free? You decide matters, as if the wills of your subjects were all in your own hands. God, Who holds all hearts in His and Who searches the reins and the hearts, does not act thus. He puts up with resistance, rebellion against His light, kicking against the goad, opposition to His inspirations, even though His Spirit be grieved thereby. He does, indeed, suffer those to perish who through the hardness of their impenitent hearts have heaped to themselves wrath in the day of vengeance. Yet He never wearies of calling them to Him, however often they reject His offers and say to Him, Depart from us, we will not follow Thy ways.[5]

"In this our Angel Guardians follow His example, and although we may forsake God by our iniquities, they will not forsake us as long as there is breath in our body, even though we may have fallen into sin. Do you want better examples for regulating your conduct?"

[Footnote 1: Book i. 6.] [Footnote 2: Book ii. 13.] [Footnote 3: Peter v. 2, 3.] [Footnote 4: 1 Peter iv. 12.] [Footnote 5: Job xxi. 14.]

UPON THE LOVE OF GOD, CALLED LOVE OF BENEVOLENCE.

You ask me what I have to say as regards the love of benevolence towards God. What good thing can we possibly wish for God which He has not already, What can we desire for Him which He does not possess far more fully than we can desire Him to have it?

What good can we do to Him to Whom all our goods belong, and Who has all good in Himself; or, rather, Who is Himself all good?

I reply to this question as I have done to others, that there are many spiritual persons, and some even of the most gifted, who are greatly mistaken in their view of this matter.

We must distinguish in God two sorts of good, the one interior, the other exterior. The first is Himself; for His goodness, like His other attributes, is one and the same thing with His essence or being.

Now this good, being infinite, can neither be augmented by our serving God and by our honouring Him, nor can it be diminished by our rebelling against Him and by our working against Him.

It is of it that the Psalmist speaks when he says that our goods are nothing unto Him.

But there is another kind of good which is exterior; and this, though it belongs to God, is not in Him, but in His creatures, just as the moneys of the king are, indeed, his, but they are in the coffers of his treasurers and officials.

This exterior good consists in the honours, obedience, service, and homage which His creatures owe and render to Him: creatures of whom each one has of necessity His glory as the final end and aim of its creation. And this good it is which we can, with the grace of God, desire for Him, and ourselves give to Him, and which we can either by our good works increase or by our sins take from.

In regard to this exterior good, we can practise towards God the love of benevolence by doing all things, and all good works in our power, in order to increase His honour, or by having the intention to bless, glorify, and exalt Him in all our actions; and much more by refraining from any action which might tarnish God's glory and displease Him, Whose will is our inviolable law.

The love of benevolence towards God does not stop here. For, because charity obliges us to love our neighbour as ourselves from love of God, we try to urge on our fellow-men to promote this Divine glory, each one as far as he can. We incite them to do all sorts of good, so as thereby to magnify God the more. Thus the Psalmist said to his brethren, O magnify the Lord with me, and let us extol His name together.[1]

This same ardour incites and presses us also (urget is the word used by St. Paul) to do our utmost to aid our neighbour to rise from sin, which renders him displeasing to God, and to prevent sin by which the Divine Goodness is offended. This is what is properly called zeal, the zeal which consumed the Psalmist when he saw how the wicked forget God, and which caused him to cry out: My zeal has made me pine away, because my enemies forgot thy words.[2] And again, The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up.[3]

You ask if this love of benevolence might not also be exercised towards God in respect of that interior and infinite good which He possesses and which is Himself. I reply, with our Blessed Father in his Theotimus, that we can wish Him to have this good, by rejoicing in the fact that He has it, and that He is what He is; hence that vehement outburst of David, Know ye, that the Lord he is God.[4] And again, A great King above all gods.

Moreover, the mystical elevations and the ecstasies of the Saints were acts of the love of God in which they wished Him all good and rejoiced in His possessing it. Our imagination, too, may help us, as it did St. Augustine, of whom our Blessed Father writes:

"This desire, then, of God, by imagination of impossibilities, may be sometimes profitably practised in moments of great and extraordinary feelings and fervours. We are told that the great St. Augustine often made such acts, pouring out in an excess of love these words: 'Ah! Lord, I am Augustine, and Thou art God; but still, if that which neither is nor can be were, that I were God, and thou Augustine, I would, changing my condition with Thee, become Augustine to the end that Thou mightest be God.'"[5]

We can again wish Him the same good by rejoicing in the knowledge that we could never, even by desiring it, add anything to the incomprehensible infinity and infinite incomprehensibility of His greatness and perfection. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory: Praise to God in the highest. Amen.

[Footnote 1: Psalm xxxiii. 4.] [Footnote 2: Psalm cxviii. 139.] [Footnote 3: Psalm lxviii. 10.] [Footnote 4: Psalm xciv. 3.] [Footnote 5: Book v. c. 6.]

DISINTERESTED LOVE OF GOD.

You know that among the Saints for whom our Blessed Father had a special devotion, St. Louis of France held a very prominent position.

Now, in the life of the holy King, written by the Sieur de Joinville, there is a little story which our Blessed Father used to say contained the summary of all Christian perfection; and, indeed, its beauty and excellence have made it so well known that we find it told or alluded to in most books of devotion.

It is that of the holy woman—whose name, though written in the Book of Life, is not recorded in history—who presented herself to Brother Yves, a Breton, of the Order of St. Dominic, whom King Louis, being in the Holy Land, had sent as an ambassador to the Caliph of Syria. She was holding in one hand a lighted torch, and in the other a pitcher of water filled to the brim.

Addressing the good Dominican, she told him that her intention was to burn up Paradise with the one and to put out the fire of Hell with the other, in order that henceforth God might be served with a holy and unfeigned charity. That is to say, with a true and disinterested love, for love of Himself alone, not from a servile and mercenary spirit; i.e., from fear of punishment or hope of reward.

Our Blessed Father told me that he should have liked this story to be told on all possible occasions, and to have had engravings of the subject for distribution, so that by so beautiful an example many might be taught to love and serve God with true charity, and to have no other end in view than His Divine glory; for true charity seeks not her own advantage, but only the honour of her Beloved.

UPON THE CHARACTER OF A TRUE CHRISTIAN.

A Salamander, according to the fable, is a creature hatched in the chilling waters of Arctic regions, and is consequently by nature so cold that it delights in the burning heat of a furnace. Fire, said the ancients, cannot consume it nor even scorch it.

"Just so is it with the Christian," said Blessed Francis. "He is born in a region far away from God, and is altogether alien from Him. He is conceived in iniquity and brought forth in sin, and sin is far removed from the way of salvation. Man is condemned before his very birth. Damnatus antequam natus, says St. Bernard. He is born in the darkness of original sin and in the region of the shadow of death. But, being born again in the waters of Baptism, in which he is clothed with the habit of charity, the fire of the holy love of God is enkindled in him. Henceforth his real life, the life of grace and of spiritual growth, depends absolutely upon his abiding in that love; for he who loves not thus is dead; while, on the other hand, by this love man is called back from death to life."

"Charity," he continued, "is like a fire and a devouring flame. The little charity which we possess in this life is liable to be extinguished by the violent temptations which urge us, or, to speak more truly, precipitate us into mortal sin; but that of the life to come is a flame all-embracing and all-conquering—it can neither fail nor flicker.

"On earth charity, like fire, needs fuel to nourish it and keep it alive; but in its proper sphere, which is Heaven, it feeds upon its own inherent heat, nor needs other nourishment. It is of vital importance here below to feed our charity with the fuel of good works, for charity is a habit so disposed to action that it unceasingly urges on those in whom the Holy Spirit has shed it abroad to perform such works. This the Apostle expresses very aptly: The charity of Christ presseth us.[1]

"St. Gregory adds that the proof of true, unfeigned love is action, the doing of works seen and known to be good. For, if faith is manifested by good works, how much more charity, which is the root, the foundation, the soul, the life, and the form of every good and perfect work."

[Footnote 1: 2 Cor. v. 14.]

UPON NOT PUTTING LIMITS TO OUR LOVE OF GOD.

Blessed Francis used to say that those who narrow their charity, limiting it to the performance of certain duties and offices, beyond which they would not take a single step, are base and cowardly souls, who seem as though they wished to enclose in their own hands the mighty Spirit of God. Seeing that God is greater than our heart, what folly it is to try to shut Him up within so small a circle.

On this subject of the immeasurable greatness of the love which we should bear to God, he uttered these remarkable words: "To remain long in a settled, unchanging condition is impossible: in this traffic he who does not gain, loses; he who does not mount this ladder, steps down; he who is not conqueror in this combat, is vanquished. We live in the midst of battles in which our enemies are always engaging us. If we do not fight we perish; but we cannot fight without overcoming, nor overcome without victory, followed by a triumph and a crown."

UPON THE LAW AND THE JUST MAN.

You ask me the meaning of the Apostle's saying that the law is not made for the just man.[1] Can any man be just unless he accommodate his actions to the rule of the law? Is it not in the observance of the law that true justice consists?

Our Blessed Father explains this passage so clearly and delicately in his Theotimus that I will quote his words for you. He says: "In truth the just man is not just, save inasmuch as he has love. And if he have love, there is no need to threaten him by the rigour of the law, love being the most insistent of all teachers, and ever urging the heart which it possesses to obey the will and the intention of the beloved. Love is a magistrate who exercises his authority without noise and without police. Its instrument is mutual complacency, by which, as we find pleasure in God, so also we desire to please Him."[2]

Permit me to add to these excellent words a reminder which ought not, I think, to be unprofitable to you. Some imagine that it is enough to observe the law of God in order to save our souls, obeying the command of our Lord: Do this, that is to say, the law, and you shall live,[3] without attempting to determine the motive which impels them to observe the law.

Now the truth is that some observe the law of God from a servile spirit, and only for fear of losing their souls. Others chiefly from a mercenary spirit for the sake of the reward promised to those who keep it, and, as our Blessed Father says very happily: "Many keep the Commandments as medicines are taken, rather that they may escape eternal death than that they may live so as to please our Saviour." One of his favourite sayings was: "It is better to fear God from love than to love Him from fear."

He says also: "There are people who, however pleasant a medicament may be, feel a repugnance when required to take it, simply from the fact of its being medicine. So also there are souls which conceive an absolute antipathy to anything they are commanded to do, only because they are so commanded." As soon, however, as the love of God is shed forth in the heart by the Holy Spirit, then the burden of the law becomes sweet, and its yoke light, because of the extreme desire of that heart to please God by the observance of His precepts. "There is no labour," he goes on to say, "where love is, or if there be any, it is a labour of love. Labour mingled with love is a certain bitter-sweet, more pleasant to the palate than that which is merely sweet. Thus then does heavenly love conform us to the will of God and make us carefully observe His commandments, this being the will of His Divine Majesty, Whom we desire to please. So that this complacency with its sweet and amiable violence anticipates the necessity of obeying which the law imposes upon us, converting that necessity into the virtue of love, and every difficulty into delight."[4]

[Footnote 1: Tim. i. 9.] [Footnote 2: Book viii. c. 1.] [Footnote 3: Luke x. 28.] [Footnote 4: Cf. Treatise on the Love of God. Book viii. c. 5.]

UPON DESIRES.

To desire to love God is to love to desire God, and consequently to love Him: for love is the root of all desires.

St. Paul says: The charity of God presses us.[1] And how does it press us if not by urging us to desire God. This longing for God is as a spur to the heart, causing it to leap forward on its way to God. The desire of glory incites the soldier to run all risks, and he desires glory because he loves it for its own sake, and deems it a blessing more precious than life itself.

A sick man has not always an appetite for food, however much he may wish for it as a sign of returning health. Nor can he by wishing for it obtain it, because the animal powers of our nature do not always obey the rational faculties.

Love and desire, however, being the offspring of one and the same faculty, whoever desires, loves, and whoever desires from the motive of charity is able to love from the same motive. But how, you ask, shall we know whether or not we have this true desire for the love of God, and having it, whether it proceeds from the motions of grace or from nature?

It is rather difficult, my dear sisters, to give reasons for principles which are themselves their own reason. If you ask me why the fire is hot you must not take it amiss if I simply answer because it is not cold.

But you wish to know what we have to do in order to obtain this most desirable desire to love God. Our Blessed Father tells us that we must renounce all useless, or less necessary desires, because the soul wastes her power when she spreads herself out in over many desires, like the river which when divided by the army of a Persian King into many channels lost itself altogether. "This," he said, "is why the Saints used to retire into solitary places, so that being freed from earthly cares they might with more fervour give themselves up wholly and entirely to divine love. This is why the spouse in the Canticles is represented with one eye closed, and all the power of vision concentrated in the other, thus enabling her to gaze more intently into the very depths of the heart of her Beloved, piercing it with love.

"This is why she even winds all her tresses into one single braid, using it as a chain to bind and hold captive the heart of her Bridegroom, making Him her slave by love! Souls which sincerely desire to love God, close their understanding to all worldly things, so as to employ it the more fully in meditating upon things Divine.

"All the aspirations of our nature have to be summed up in the one single intention of loving God, and Him alone: for to desire anything otherwise than for God is to desire God the less."[2]

[Footnote 1: 2 Cor. v. 14.] [Footnote 2: Cf. Treatise on the Love of God. Book xii. 3.]

HOW CHARITY EXCELS BOTH FAITH AND HOPE.

Not only did Blessed Francis consider it intolerable that moral virtues should be held to be comparable to Charity, but he was even unwilling that Faith and Hope, excellent, supernatural, and divinely infused though they be, should be reckoned to be of value without Charity, or even when compared with it. In this he only echoed the thought and words of the great Apostle St. Paul, who in his first Epistle to the Corinthians writes: Faith, Hope, and Charity are three precious gifts, but the greatest of these is Charity.

Faith, it is true, is love, "a love of the mind for the beautiful in the divine Mysteries," as our Blessed Father says in his Treatise on the Love of God,[1] but "the motions of love which forerun the act of faith required from our justification are either not love properly speaking, or but a beginning and imperfect love," which inclines the soul to acquiesce in the truths proposed for its acceptance.

Hope, too, is love, "a love for the useful in the goods which are promised in the other life."[2] "It goes, indeed, to God but it returns to us; its sight is turned upon the divine goodness, yet with some respect to our own profit."

"In Hope love is imperfect because it does not tend to God's infinite goodness as being such in itself, but only because it is so to us.... In real truth no one is able by virtue of this love either to keep God's commandments or obtain life everlasting, because it is a love that yields more affection than effect when it is not accompanied by Charity."[3]

But the perfect love of God, which is only to be found in Charity, is a disinterested love, which loves the sovereign goodness of God in Himself and for His sake only, without any aim except that He may be that which He is, eternally loved, glorified, and adored, because He deserves to be so, as St. Thomas says. And it is in the fact that it attains more perfectly its final end that its pre-eminence consists. This is very clearly shown by Blessed Francis in the same Treatise where he tells us that Eternal life or Salvation is shown to Faith, and is prepared for Hope, but is given only to Charity. Faith points out the way to the land of promise as a pillar of cloud and of fire, that is, light and dark; Hope feeds us with its manna of sweetness, but Charity actually introduces us into it, like the Ark of the Covenant, which leads us dry-shod through the Jordan, that is, through the judgment, and which shall remain amidst the people in the heavenly land promised to the true Israelites, where neither the pillar of Faith serves as a guide, nor the manna of Hope is needed as food.[4]

That which an ancient writer said of poverty, that it was a great good, yet very little known as such, can be said with far more reason of Charity. It is a hidden treasure, a pearl shut up in its shell, and of which few know the value. The heretics of the present day profess themselves content with a dead Faith, to which they attribute all their justice and their salvation. There are also catholics who appear to limit themselves to that interested love which is in Hope, and who serve God as mercenaries, more for their own interest than for His. There are few who love God as He ought to be loved, that is to say, with the disinterested love of Charity. Yet, without this wedding garment, without this oil which fed the lamps of the wise Virgins, there is no admittance to the Marriage of the Lamb.

It is here that we may sing with the Psalmist: The Lord hath looked down from Heaven upon the children of men to see if there be any that understand and seek God, that is, to know how He wishes to be served. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.[5] This means that there is not one who doth good in spirit and in truth. Yet, what is serving Him in spirit and in truth but resolving to honour and obey Him, for the love of Himself, without admixture of private self-interest?

But whoever has learnt to serve God after the pattern of those His beloved ones, who worship Him in spirit and in truth, in burning Faith and Hope, animated by Charity, may be said to be of the number of the holy nation, the royal Priesthood, the chosen people, and to have entered into the sanctuary of true and Christian holiness, of which our Blessed Father speaks thus: "In the sanctuary was kept the ark of the covenant, and near it the tables of the law, manna in a golden vessel, and Aaron's rod, which in one night bore flowers and fruit. And in the highest point of the soul are found: 1 deg.. The light of Faith, figured by the manna hidden in its vessel, by which we recognize the truth of the mysteries we do not understand. 2 deg.. The utility of Hope, represented by Aaron's flowering and fruitful rod, by which we acquiesce in the promises of the goods which we see not. 3 deg.. The sweetness of holy Charity, represented by God's commandments, the keeping of which it includes, by which we acquiesce in the union of our spirit with God's, though yet are hardly, if at all, conscious of this our happiness."[6]

[Footnote 1: Book ii. 13.] [Footnote 2: Book i. c. 5.] [Footnote 3: Book ii. 17.] [Footnote 4: Book i. 6.] [Footnote 5: Psalm xiii. 2, 3.] [Footnote 6: Book i. 12.]

SOME THOUGHTS OF BLESSED FRANCIS ON THE PASSION.

Our Blessed Father considered that no thought is of such avail to urge us forward towards the perfection of divine love as the consideration of the Passion and Death of the Son of God. This he called the sweetest, and yet the most constraining of all motives of piety.

And when I asked him how he could possibly mention gentleness and constraint or violence in the same breath, he answered, "I can do so in the sense in which the Apostle says that the Charity of God presses us, constrains us, impels us, draws us, for such is the meaning of the word Urget.[1] In the same sense as that in which the Holy Ghost in the Canticle of Canticles tells us that Love is as strong as death and fierce as hell."

"We cannot deny," he added, "that love is the very essence of sweetness, and the sweetener of all bitterness, yet see how it is compared to what is most irresistible, namely, death and hell. The reason of this is that as there is nothing so strong as the sweetness of love, so also there is nothing more sweet and more lovable than its strength. Oil and honey are each smooth and sweet, but when boiling nothing is to be compared with the heat they give out.

"The bee when not interfered with is the most harmless of insects; irritated its sting is the sharpest of all.

"Jesus Crucified is the Lion of the tribe of Judah—He is the answer to Samson's riddle, for in His wounds is found the honeycomb of the strongest charity, and from this strength proceeds the sweetness of our greatest consolation. And certainly since our Lord's dying for us, as all Scripture testifies, is the climax of his love, it ought also to be the strongest of all our motives for loving Him.

"This it is which made St. Bernard exclaim: 'Oh, my Lord, I entreat Thee to grant that my whole heart may be so absorbed and, as it were, consumed in the burning strength and honeyed sweetness of Thy crucified love, that I may die for the love of Thy love, O Redeemer of my soul, as Thou hast deigned to die for the love of my love.'

"It is this excess of love, which on the hill of Calvary drained the last drop of life-blood from the Sacred Heart of the Lover of our Souls; it is of this love that Moses and Elias spoke on Mount Thabor amid the glory of the Transfiguration.

"They spoke of it to teach us that even in the glory of Heaven, of which the Transfiguration was only a glimpse, after the vision of the goodness of God contemplated and loved in itself, and for itself, there will be no more powerful incentive towards the love of our Divine Saviour than the remembrance of His Death and Passion.

"We have a signal testimony to this truth in the Apocalypse, where the Saints and Angels chant these words before the throne of Him that liveth for ever and ever: Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction from every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth."[2]

[Footnote 1: 2 Cor. v. 14.] [Footnote 2: Apoc. v. 12, 18.]

UPON THE VANITY OF HEATHEN PHILOSOPHY.

I was speaking on one occasion of the writings of Seneca and of Plutarch, praising them highly and saying that they had been my delight when young, our Blessed Father replied: "After having tasted the manna of the Fathers and Theologians, this is to hanker for the leeks and garlic of Egypt." When I rejoined that these above mentioned writers furnished me with all that I could desire for instruction in morals, and that Seneca seemed to me more like a christian author than a pagan, he said: "There I differ from you entirely. I consider that no spirit is more absolutely opposed to the spirit of christianity than that of Seneca, and no more dangerous reading for a soul aiming at true piety can be found than his works."

Being much surprised at this opinion, and asking for an explanation, he went on to say: "This opposition between the two spirits comes from the fact that Seneca would have us look for perfection within ourselves, whereas we must seek it outside ourselves, in God, that is to say, in the grace which God pours into our souls through the Holy Ghost. Not I, but the grace of God with me.[1] By this grace we are what we are. The spirit of Seneca inflates the soul and puffs it up with pride, that of Christianity rejects the knowledge which puffs up in order to embrace the charity which edifies. In short, there is the same difference between the spirit of Seneca and the christian spirit that there is between virtues acquired by us, which are, therefore, dead, and virtues that are infused by God, which are, therefore, living. Indeed, how could this philosopher, being destitute of the true Faith, possess charity? And yet well we know that without charity all acquired virtues are unable to save us."

[Footnote 1: 1 Cor. xv. 10.]

UPON THE PURE LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR.

Our Blessed Father, in his Twelfth Conference, teaches how to love one's neighbour, for whom his own love was so pure and so unfeigned.

"We must look upon all the souls of men as resting in the Heart of our Saviour. Alas! they who regard their fellow-men in any other way run the risk of not loving them with purity, constancy, or impartiality. But beholding them in that divine resting place, who can do otherwise than love them, bear with them, and be patient with their imperfections? Who dare call them irritating or troublesome? Yes, my daughters, your neighbour is there in the Heart of the Saviour, and there so beloved and lovable that the Divine Lover dies for love of him."

A truly charitable love of our neighbour is a rarer thing than one would think. It is like the few particles of gold which are found on the shores of the Tagus, among masses of sand.

Hear what he says on this subject in the eighth of his Spiritual Conferences:

"There are certain kinds of affection which appear very elevated and very perfect in the eyes of creatures, but which in the sight of God are of low degree and valueless. Such are all friendships based, not only on true charity, which is God, but only on natural inclinations and human motives.

"On the other hand, there are friendships which in the eyes of the world appear mean and despicable, but which in the sight of God have every excellence, because they are built up in God, and for God, without admixture of human interests. Now acts of charity which are performed for those whom we love in this way are truly noble in their nature, and are, indeed, perfect acts, inasmuch as they tend purely to God, while the services which we render to those whom we love from natural inclination are of far less merit. Generally speaking, we do these more for the sake of the great delight and satisfaction they cause us than for the love of God." He goes on to say: "The former kind of friendship is likewise inferior to the latter in that it is not lasting. Its motive is so weak that when slighted or not responded to it easily grows cold, and finally disappears. Far otherwise that affection which has its foundation in God, and therefore a motive which above all others is solid and abiding.

"Human affection is founded on the possession by the person we love of qualities which may be lost. It can, therefore, never be very secure. On the contrary, he who loves in God, and only in God, need fear no change, because God is always Himself." Again, speaking on this subject, our Blessed Father says: "All the other bonds which link hearts one to another are of glass, or jet; but the chain of holy charity is of gold and diamonds." In another place he remarks: "St. Catherine of Sienna illustrates the subject by means of a beautiful simile. 'If,' she says, 'you take a glass and fill it from a spring, and if while drinking from this glass you do not remove it from the spring, you may drink as much as you please without ever emptying the glass.' So it is with friendships: if we never withdraw them from their source they never dry up."

UPON BEARING WITH ONE ANOTHER.

He laid great stress at all times on the duty of bearing with our neighbour, and thus obeying the commands of Holy Scripture, Bear ye one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ,[1] and the counsels of the Apostle who so emphatically recommends this mutual support. "To-day mine, to-morrow thine." If to-day we put up with the ill-temper of our brother, to-morrow he will bear with our imperfections. We must in this life do like those who, walking on ice, give their hands to one another, so that if one slips, the other who has a firm foothold may support him.

St. John the Evangelist, towards the close of his life, exhorted his brethren not to deny one another this support, but to foster mutual charity, which prompts the Christian to help his neighbour, and is one of the chiefest precepts of Jesus Christ, Who, true Lamb of God, endured, and carried on His shoulders, and on the wood of the Cross, all our sins—an infinitely heavy burden, nor to be borne by any but Him. The value set by our Blessed Father on this mutual support was marvellous, and he went so far as to look upon it as the crown of our perfection.

He says on the subject to one who was very dear to him: "It is a great part of our perfection to bear with one another in our imperfections; for there is no better way of showing our own love for our neighbour."

God will, in His mercy, bear with him who has mercifully borne with the defects of his neighbour.

Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given to you. Good measure of blessings, and pressed down, and shaken together, and running over shall they give into your bosom.[2]

[Footnote 1: Gal. vi. 2.] [Footnote 2: St. Luke vi. 37, 38.]

UPON FRATERNAL CORRECTION.

Speaking, my dear sisters, as he often did, on the important subject of brotherly or friendly reproof, our Blessed Father made use of words profitable to us all, but especially to those who are in authority, and have therefore to rule and guide others.

He said: "Truth which is not charitable proceeds from a charity which is not true."

When I asked him how we could feel certain that our reproofs were given out of sincere charity, he answered:

"When we speak the truth only for the love of God, and for the good of our neighbour, whom we are reproving."

He added: "We must follow the counsels of the great Apostle St. Paul, when he bids us reprove in a spirit of meekness.[1]

"Indeed gentleness is the intimate friend of charity and its inseparable companion." This is what St. Paul means when he says that charity is kind, and beareth all things, and endureth all things.[2] God, who is Charity, guides the mild in judgment and teaches the meek. His way, His Spirit, is not in the whirlwind, nor in the storm, nor in the tempest, nor in the voice of many waters; but in a gentle and whispering wind. Mildness is come upon us, says the Royal Psalmist, and we shall be corrected.[3]

Again Blessed Francis advised us to imitate the Good Samaritan, who poured oil and wine into the wounds of the poor wayfarer fallen among thieves.[4] He used to say that "to make a good salad you want more oil than either vinegar or salt."

I will give you some more of his memorable sayings on this subject. Many a time I have heard them from his own lips: "Always be as gentle as you can, and remember that more flies are caught with a spoonful of honey than with a hundred barrels of vinegar. If we must err in one direction or the other, let it be in that of gentleness. No sauce was ever spoilt by too much sugar. The human mind is so constituted that it rebels against harshness, but becomes perfectly tractable under gentle treatment. A mild word cools the heat of anger, as water extinguishes fire. There is no soil so ungrateful as not to bear fruit when a kindly hand cultivates it. To tell our neighbour wholesome truths tenderly is to throw red roses rather than red-hot coals in his face. How could we be angry with any one who pelted us with pearls or deluged us with rose water! There is nothing more bitter than a green walnut, but when preserved in sugar there is nothing sweeter or more digestible. Reproof is by nature harsh and biting, but confectioned in sweetness and warmed through and through in the fire of charity, it becomes salutary, pleasant, and even delightful. The just will correct me with mercy, and the oil of the flatterer shall not anoint my head.[5] Better are the wounds of a friend than the kisses of the hypocrite;[6] if the sharpness of the friend's tongue pierce me it is only as the lancet of the surgeon, which probes the abscess and lacerates in order to heal."

"But (I replied) truth is always truth in whatever language it may be couched, and in whatever sense it may be taken." In support of this assertion I quoted the words spoken by St. Paul to Timothy:

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season, reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and will, indeed, turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned into fables.[7]

Our Blessed Father replied: "The whole force of that apostolic lesson lies in the phrase: In all patience and doctrine. Doctrine signifies truth, and this truth must be spoken with patience. When I use the word patience, I am trying to put before you an attitude of mind which is not one of confident expectation, that truth will always meet with a hearty welcome, and even some degree of acclamation; but an attitude of mind which is on the contrary prepared to meet with repulse, reprobation, rejection.

"Surely, seeing that the Son of God was set for a sign of contradiction, we cannot be surprised if His doctrine, which is the truth, is marked with the same seal! Surprised! Nay, of necessity it must be so.

"Consider the many false constructions and murmurings to which the sacred truths preached by our Saviour during His life on earth were exposed!

"Was not this one of the reproaches addressed by Him to the Jews: If I say the truth you believe me not.

"Was not our Lord Himself looked upon as an impostor, a seditious person, a blasphemer, one possessed by the devil? Did they not even take up stones to cast at him? Yet, He cursed not those who cursed Him; but repaid their maledictions with blessings, possessing His soul in patience."

Blessed Francis wrote to me on this same subject a letter, which has since been printed among his works, in which he expressed himself as follows:

"Everyone who wishes to instruct others in the way of holiness must be prepared to bear with their injustice and unreasonableness, and to be rewarded with ingratitude. Oh! how happy will you be when men slander you, and say all manner of evil of you, hating the truth which you offer them. Rejoice with much joy, for so much the greater is your reward in Heaven. It is a royal thing to be calumniated for having done well, and to be stoned in a good cause."

[Footnote 1: Gal. vi. 1.] [Footnote 2: 1 Cor. xiii. 4, 7.] [Footnote 3: Psalm lxxxix. 10] [Footnote 4: St. Luke x. 34.] [Footnote 5: Psalm cxl. 5.] [Footnote 6: Prov. xxvii. 6.] [Footnote 7: Tim. iv. 2, 4.]

UPON FINDING EXCUSES FOR THE FAULTS OF OUR FELLOW-MEN.

I was one day complaining to him of certain small land-owners, who having nothing but their gentle birth to boast of, and being as poor as Job, yet set up as great noblemen, and even as princes, boasting of their high birth, of their genealogy, and of the glorious deeds of their ancestors. I quoted the saying of the wise man, that he hated, among other things, with a perfect hatred the poor proud man, adding that I entirely agreed with him.

To boast in the multitude of our riches is natural, but to be vain in our poverty is beyond understanding.

He answered me thus: "What would you have? Do you want these poor people to be doubly poor, like sick physicians, who, the more they know about their disease the more disconsolate they are? At all events, if they are rich in honours they will think the less of their poverty, and will behave perhaps like that young Athenian, who in his madness considered himself the richest person in his neighbourhood, and being cured of his mental weakness through the kind intervention of his friends, had them arraigned before the judges, and condemned to give him back his pleasant illusion. What would you have, I repeat? It is in the very nature of nobility to meet the rebuffs of fortune with a cheerful courage; like the palm-tree which lifts itself up under its burden. Would to God they had no greater failing than this! It is against that wretched and detestable habit of fighting duels that we ought to raise our voice." Saying this, he gave a profound sigh.

A certain lady had been guilty of a most serious fault, committed, indeed, through mere weakness of character, but none the less scandalous in the extreme. Our Blessed Father, being informed of what had happened, and having every kind of vehement invective against the unfortunate person poured into his ears, only said: "Human misery! human misery!" And again, "Ah! how we are encompassed with infirmity! What can we do of ourselves, but fail? We should, perhaps, do worse than this if God did not hold us by the right hand, and guide us to His will." At last, weary of fencing thus, he faced the battle, and the comments on this unhappy fall becoming ever sharper and more emphatic, exclaimed: "Oh! happy fault, of what great good will it not be the cause![1] This lady's soul would have perished with many others had she not lost herself. Her loss will be her gain, and the gain of many others."

Some of those who heard this prediction merely shrugged their shoulders. Nevertheless, it was verified. The sinning soul returned to give glory to God, and the community which she had scandalized was greatly edified by her conversion and subsequent good example.

This story reminds me of the words used by the Church in one of her offices. Words in which she calls the sin of Adam thrice happy, since because of it the Redeemer came down to our earth—a fortunate malady, since it brought us the visit of so great a Physician.

"Even sins," says our Blessed Father, in one of his letters, "work together for good to those who truly repent of them."

[Footnote 1: Office for Holy Saturday.]

UPON NOT JUDGING OTHERS.

Men see the exterior; God alone sees the heart, and knows the inmost thoughts of all. Our Blessed Father used to say that the soul of our neighbour was that tree of the knowledge of good and evil which we are forbidden to touch under pain of severe chastisement; because God has reserved to Himself the judgment of each individual soul. Who art thou, says Sacred Scripture, who judgest thy brother? Knowest thou that wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself?[1]

Who has given thee the hardihood to take upon thyself the office of Him Who has received from the Eternal Father all judgment? That is to say, all power of judging in Heaven and on earth? He observed that a want of balance of mind, very common among men, leads them to judge of what they do not know, and not to judge of what they do know. They, as St. Jude declares, blaspheme in what they know not, and corrupt themselves in what they know.[2] They are blind to what passes in their own homes, but preternaturally clear-sighted to all happening in the houses of others.

Now what is this that a man knows not at all? Surely, the heart; the secret thoughts of his neighbour. And yet how eager is he to dip the fingers of his curiosity in this covered dish reserved for the Great Master. And what is it that a man knows best of all, or at least ought to know? Surely, his own heart; his own secret thoughts. Nevertheless, he fears to enter into himself, and to stand in his own presence as a criminal before his judge. He dreads above aught besides the implacable tribunal of his own conscience, itself alone more surely convicting than a thousand witnesses.

Our Blessed Father pictures very vividly this kind of injustice in his Philothea, where he says: "It is equally necessary in order to escape being judged that we both judge ourselves, and that we refrain from judging others. Our Lord forbids the latter[3] and His Apostle commands the former. If we would judge ourselves we should not be judged.[4] Our way is the very reverse. What is forbidden to us we are continually doing. Judging our neighbour on all possible occasions, and what is commanded us, namely, to judge ourselves, that the last thing we think of."[5]

"A certain woman" (Blessed Francis continued with a smile), "all her life long had on principle done exactly the contrary to what her husband wanted her to do. In the end she fell into a river and was drowned. Her husband tried to recover the body, but was found fault with for going up the stream, since she must, necessarily, float down with the current. 'And do you really imagine,' he exclaimed, 'that even her dead body could do anything else but contradict me?' We are, most of us, very like that woman," said the Saint. "Yet it is written: Judge not, and you shall not be judged; condemn not, and you shall not be condemned."[6]

How, then, you will say, is it lawful to have judges and courts of justice, since man may not judge our neighbour? I answer this objection in Blessed Francis' own words:

"But may we, then, under no circumstances judge our neighbour? Under no circumstances whatever—for in a court of justice it is God, Philothea, not man, who judges and pronounces sentence. It is true that He makes use of the voice of the magistrate, but only to render His own sentence audible to us. Earthly judges are His spokesmen and interpreters, nor ought they to decide anything but as they have learnt from Him of Whom they are the oracles. It is when they do otherwise, and follow the lead of their own passions, that they, and not God, judge, and that consequently they themselves will be judged. In fact, it is forbidden to men, as men, to judge others.[7] This is why Scripture gives the name of gods[8] to judges, because when judging they hold the place of God, and Moses for that reason is called the god of Pharaoh."[9]

You ask if we are forbidden to entertain doubts about our neighbour when founded on good and strong reasons. I answer we are not so forbidden, because to suspend judgment is not to judge, but only to take a step towards it. We must, nevertheless, beware of being thereby hurried on to form a hasty judgment, for that is the rock on which so many make shipwreck; that is the flare of the torch in which so many thoughtless moths singe their tiny wings.

In order that we may avoid this danger he gives us an excellent maxim, one which is not only useful, but necessary to us. It is that, however many aspects an action may have, the one we should dwell upon should be that which is the best.

If it is impossible to excuse an action, we can at least modify our blame of it by excusing the intention, or we may lay the blame on the violence of the temptation, or impute it to ignorance, or to the being taken by surprise, or to human weakness, so as at least to try to lessen the scandal of it. If you are told that by doing this you are blessing the unrighteous and seeking excuses for sin, you may reply that without either praising or excusing his sin you can be merciful to the sinner.

You may add that judgment without mercy will be the lot of those who have no pity for the misfortunes or the infirmities of their brother, and who in him despise their own flesh. We all are brethren, all of one flesh. In fact, as says our Blessed Father, those who look well after their own consciences rarely fall into the sin of rash judgment. To judge rashly is proper to slothful souls, which, because they never busy themselves with their own concerns, have leisure to devote their energies to finding fault with others.

An ancient writer expresses this well. Men who are curious in their inquiries into the lives of others are mostly careless about correcting their own faults. The virtuous man is like the sky, of which the stars are, as it were, the eyes turned in upon itself.

[Footnote 1: Rom. ii. 1.] [Footnote 2: St. Jude 10.] [Footnote 3: St. Matt. vii. 1.] [Footnote 4: 1 Cor. xi. 31.] [Footnote 5: The Devout Life, Part iii. 28.] [Footnote 6: St. Luke vi. 37.] [Footnote 7: The Devout Life, Part iii. 28.] [Footnote 8: Psalm lxxxi. 1, 6.] [Footnote 9: Exod. vii. 1.]

UPON JUDGING OURSELVES.

"We do," as Blessed Francis has said, "exactly the reverse of what the Gospel bids us do. The Gospel commands us to judge ourselves severely and exactly, while it forbids us to judge our brethren. If we did judge ourselves, we should not be judged by God, because, forestalling His judgment and confessing our faults, we should escape His condemnation. On the other hand, who are we that we should judge our brethren, the servants of another? To their own Master they rise or fall.

"Let us not judge before the time until the Lord shall reveal what is hidden in darkness and pierce the wall of the temple to show what passes therein. Man judges by appearances only. God alone sees the heart; and it is by that which is within that true judgment is made of that which is without.

"So rash are we in our judgments that we as often as not seize the firebrand by the burning end; that is, we condemn ourselves while in the very act of rebuking others. The reproach of the Gospel, Physician, heal thyself,[1] we may take to ourselves. So also that other, Why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye?[2] To notice which way we are going is the first condition of our walking in the right way, according to the words of David, I have thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.[3] So, on the other hand, we go astray if we do not pay attention to the path we are following. Judge not others and you will not be judged; judge yourselves, and God will have mercy on you."

[Footnote 1: St. Luke iv. 23] [Footnote 2: St. Matt. vii. 3] [Footnote 3: Psalm cxviii. 59]

UPON SLANDER AND DETRACTION.

There is a difference between uttering a falsehood and making a mistake—for to lie is to say what one knows or believes to be false; but to mistake is to say, indeed, what is false, but what one nevertheless thinks in good faith to be true. Similarly, there is a great difference between slandering our neighbour and recounting his evil deeds. The wrong doing of our neighbour may be spoken of either with a good or with a bad intention. The intention is good when the faults of our neighbour are reported to one who can remedy them, or whose business it is to correct the wrong-doer, whether for the public good or for the sinner's own.

Again, there is no harm in speaking among friends of harm done, provided it be from friendliness, benevolence, or compassion; and this more especially when the fault is public and notorious.

We slander our neighbour, then, only when, whether true or false, we recount his misdeeds with intention to harm him, or out of hatred, envy, anger, contempt, and from a wish to take away his fair name.

We slander our neighbour when we make known his faults, though neither obliged so to do nor having in view his good nor the good of others. The sin of slander is mortal or venial according to the measure of the wrong we may thereby have done to our neighbour.

Our Blessed Father used to say that to do away with slander would be to do away with most of the sins of mankind. He was right, for of sins of thought, word, and deed, the most frequent and often the most hurtful in their effects are those committed with the tongue. And this for several reasons.

Firstly, sins of thought are only hurtful to him who commits them. They are neither occasion for scandal, nor do they annoy anyone, nor give anyone bad example. God alone knows them, and it is He alone who is offended by them. Then, too, a return to God by loving repentance effaces them in a moment, and heals the wound which they have inflicted on the heart.

Sins of the tongue, on the other hand, are not so readily got rid of. A harmful word can only be recalled by retracting it, and even then the minds of our hearers mostly remain infected with the poison we poured in through the ears; and this, in spite of our humbling ourselves to recall what we have said.

Secondly, sins of deed, when they are publicly known, are followed by punishment. This renders them rarer, because fear of the penalty acts as a curb on even the basest of mankind.

But slander (except the calumny be of the most atrocious and aggravated kind) is not, generally speaking, such as comes before the eye of the law. On the contrary, if in the guise of bantering it is ingenious and subtle it passes current for gallantry and wit.

This is why so many people fall into this evil; for, says an ancient writer: "Impunity is a dainty allurement to sin."

Thirdly, slandering finds encouragement in the very small amount of restitution and reparation made for this fault. Indeed, in my opinion, those who direct souls in the tribunal of penance are a little too indulgent, not to say lax, in this matter.

If anyone has inflicted a bodily injury on another see how severely the justice of the law punishes the outrage. In olden days the law of retaliation demanded an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If a man stole the goods of another he was condemned to the galleys, or even to the gibbet. But in the case of slander, unless, as I have said, it be of the most highly aggravated kind, there is scarcely a thought of making reparation, even by a courteous apology. Yet those who sit in high places value their reputation much more than riches, or life itself, seeing that among all natural blessings, honour undoubtedly holds the first rank. Since, then, we cannot gain admittance into heaven without having restored that which belongs to another, let the slanderer consider how he can possibly hope for an entrance there unless he re-establishes his neighbour's reputation, which he tried to destroy by detraction.

UPON HASTY JUDGMENTS.

Our Blessed Father insisted most earnestly upon the difference which exists between a vice and sin, reproving those who spoke of a person who had committed one or more grave faults as vicious.

"Virtuous habits," he would say, "not being destroyed by one act contrary to them, a man cannot be branded as intemperate because he has once been guilty of intemperance."

Thus when he heard anyone condemned as bad because he had committed a bad act, he took pains with his accustomed gentleness to modify the charge by making a distinction between vice and sin, the former being a habit, the latter an isolated act.

"Vice," he said, "is a habit, sin, the outcome of that habit; and just as one swallow does not make a summer, so one act of sin does not make a person vicious. That is to say, it does not render him a sinner in the sense of being steeped in and wholly given over to the dominion of the particular vice, the act of which he has committed once, or even more than once."

Being asked whether in conformity with this principle it would not be equally wrong to praise anyone for a single act of virtue, as if that virtue were his or her constant habit, he replied: "You must remember that we are forbidden to judge our neighbour in the matter of the evil which he may appear to do, but not in the good. On the contrary, we may and should suppose that he has the good habit from which the act seen by us naturally springs. Nor can we err in such a supposition, since the very perfection of charity consists in its excess. But when we judge evil of others, our tongue is like the lancet in the surgeon's hand, and you know how careful he must be not to pierce an artery in opening a vein. We must only judge from what we see. We may say that a man has blasphemed and sworn, if we have heard him do so; but we may not in that account alone say that he is a blasphemer; that is, that he has contracted the habit of blasphemy, substituting the vice for the sin."

The objection was raised that it would follow that we must never attempt to judge whether a person is or is not in a state of grace, however holy his life may seem to be; since no one knows whether he is worthy of love or of hate, and least of all we, who know our neighbour far less intimately than he knows himself. To this he replied, that if faith, according to St. James, is known by its works,[1] much more is charity so known, since it is a more active virtue, its works being the sparks from seeing which we learn that its fire is still burning somewhere. And though when we saw a sin, which is undoubtedly mortal, being committed, we might have said that the sinner was no longer in a state of grace, how do we know that a moment afterwards God may not have touched his heart, and that he may not have been converted from his evil ways by an act of contrition? This is why we must always fear to judge evil of others, but as regards judging well, we are free to do so as much as we please. Charity grows more and more by hoping all good of its neighbour, by thinking no evil, by rejoicing in truth and goodness, but not in iniquity.

[Footnote 1: St. James ii. 17, 26.]

UPON RIDICULING ONE'S NEIGHBOUR.

When in company he heard anyone being turned into ridicule, he always showed by his countenance that the conversation displeased him, and would try to turn the subject by introducing some other. When unsuccessful in this he would give the signal to cease, as is done in tournaments when the combatants are becoming too heated, and thus put a stop to the combat, crying: "This is too much! This is trampling too violently on the good man! This is altogether going beyond bounds! Who gives us the right to amuse ourselves thus at the expense of another? How should we like to be talked about like this, and to have our little weaknesses brought out, just to amuse anybody who may chance to hear? To put up with our neighbour and his imperfections is a great perfection, but it is a great imperfection to laugh at him and his short-comings."

He expresses himself to Philothea on the same subject as follows:

"A tendency to ridicule and mock at others is one of the worst possible conditions of mind. God hates this vice exceedingly, as He has often shown by the strange punishments which have awaited it. Nothing is so contrary to charity, and still more so to devotion, as contempt and disparagement of our neighbour. Now derision and ridicule are always simply contempt, so that the learned are justified in saying that to mock at our neighbour is the worst kind of injury that we can by mere word inflict on him; because all other words of disparagement are compatible with some degree of esteem for the person injured, but ridicule is essentially the expression of contempt and disdain."[1]

Now Holy Scripture pronounces woe upon those who despise others, and threatens them with being despised themselves. God always takes the part of the despised against the despiser. Our Lord says: He who despises you, despises Me;[2] and speaking of little children, Take heed that you despise not one of them.[3] And Almighty God in comforting Moses for an insult offered to the great law-giver by the Children of Israel, says: They have not despised you, but Me.

On one occasion when Blessed Francis was present some young lady in the company was ridiculing another who was conspicuously ill-favoured. Defects born with her were what were being laughed over. He gently reminded the speaker that it is God Who has made us and not we ourselves and that all His works are perfect. But the latter assertion only making her jeer the more, he ended by saying: "Believe me, I know for a fact her soul is more upright, more beautiful, and better formed than you can possibly have any conception of." This silenced her and sent her away abashed.

On another occasion he heard some people laughing at a poor hump-back who was absent at the time. Our Blessed Father instantly took up his defence, quoting again those words of Scripture: The works of God are perfect. "What!" exclaimed one of the company. "Perfect! and yet deformed!" Blessed Francis replied pleasantly: "And do you really think that there cannot be perfect hunchbacks, just as much as others are perfect because gracefully made and straight as a dart!" In fine, when they tried to make him explain what perfection he meant, whether outward or inward, he said: "Enough. What I tell you is true; let us talk of something better."

[Footnote 1: The Devout Life, Part iii. c. 27.] [Footnote 2: Luke x. 16.] [Footnote 3: Matt. xviii. 10.]

UPON CONTRADICTING OTHERS.

There is no kind of disposition more displeasing to men than one which is obstinate and contradictory. People of this sort are pests of conversation, firebrands in social intercourse, sowers of discord. Like hedgehogs and horse-chestnuts, they have prickles all over them, and cannot be handled. On the other hand, a gentle, pliable, condescending disposition, which is ready to give way to others, is a living charm. It is like the honeycomb which attracts every sort of fly; it becomes everybody's master, because it makes itself everybody's servant; being all things to all men, it wins them all.

People of a peevish, morose disposition soon find themselves left alone in a mighty solitude; they are avoided like thistles which prick whoever touches them. Our Blessed Father always spoke with the highest praise of the dictum of St. Louis, that we should never speak evil of anyone, unless when by our silence we should seem to hold with him in his wrong-doing, and so give scandal to others.

The holy King did not inculcate this from motives of worldly prudence, which he detested; nor was he following the maxim of that pagan Emperor, who declared that no one, in quitting the presence of his Sovereign, should ever be suffered to go away dissatisfied, a saying dictated by cunning and with the object of teaching his fellow-potentates to win men by fair words. No, St. Louis was travelling by a very different road, and spoke in a truly Christian spirit, desiring only to hinder disputes and contentions, and to follow the advice of St. Paul, who wishes that we should avoid contentions and strivings.[1] But if, when it is in our power to do so, we do not openly condemn the fault or error of another, will not that be a sort of connivance at, and consequently a participation in, the wrong-doing? Our Blessed Father answers that difficulty thus: "When it is a question of contradicting another, and of setting your opinion against his, it must be done with the utmost gentleness and tact, and without any desire to wound the feelings of the other; for nothing is gained by taking things ill-temperedly."

If you irritate a horse by teasing him he will, if he has any mettle, take the bit between his teeth and carry you just where he pleases. But when you slacken the rein he stops and becomes tractable.

So it is with the mind of another; if you force it to assent, you humble it; if you humble it, you irritate it; if you irritate it, you utterly lose hold of it. The mind may be persuaded; it cannot be constrained; to force it to believe is to force it from all belief. Is mildness come upon us? says David; then are we corrected.[2] The Spirit of God, gentle and sweet, is in the soft refreshing zephyrs, not in the whirlwind, nor in the tempest. It is God's enemy, the devil, who is called a spirit of contradiction; and such human beings as imitate him share his title.

[Footnote 1: Titus iii. 9.] [Footnote 2: Psalm lxxxix. 10.]

UPON LOVING OUR ENEMIES.

Some one having complained to Blessed Francis of the difficulty he found in obeying the christian precept commanding us to love our enemies, he replied: "As for me, I know not how my heart is made, or how it happens that God seems to have been pleased to give me lately altogether a new one. Certain it is that I not only find no difficulty in practising this precept; but I take such pleasure in doing it, and experience so peculiar and delightful a sweetness in it, that if God had forbidden me to love my enemies I should have had great difficulty in obeying Him.

"It seems to me that the very contradiction and opposition we meet with from our fellow-men, ought to rouse our spirit to love them more, for they serve as a whetstone to sharpen our virtue.

"Aloes make honey seem sweeter; and wine has a more delicious flavour if we drink it after having eaten bitter almonds. It is true that mostly a little conflict and struggle goes on in our minds: but in the end it will surely come to pass with us what the Psalmist commands when he says: Be angry and sin not.[1]

"What! Shall we not bear with those whom God Himself bears with? We who have ever before our eyes the great example of Jesus Christ on the Cross praying for His enemies. And then, too, our enemies have not crucified us; they have not persecuted us, even to death; we have not yet resisted unto blood.

"Again, who would not love this dear enemy for whom Jesus Christ prayed? For whom He died? For, mark it well, He prayed not only for those who crucified Him, but also for those who persecute us, and Him in us. As He testified to Saul when He cried out to Him: Why persecutest thou Me?[2] That is to say, Me in My members.

"We are not, indeed, obliged to love the vices of our enemy; his hatred of good, the enmity which he bears us; for all these things are displeasing to God, Whom they offend; but we must separate the sin from the sinner, the precious from the vile, if we desire to be like our Saviour."

He did not admit the maxim of the world: "We must not trust a reconciled enemy." In his opinion the exact contrary of this dictum is more in accordance with truth.

He used to say that "fallings out" in the case of friends only serve to draw the bonds of friendship closer, just as the smith makes use of water to increase the heat of his fire. He added, as a well-known fact in surgery, that the callosity which forms over a fractured bone is so dense that the limb will never break again at that particular place.

Indeed, when a reconciliation has taken place between two persons hitherto at variance, it is almost certain that each will set to work, perhaps even unconsciously, to make the newly-cemented friendship firmer. The offender by avoiding further offence, and atoning as far as possible for what is past, and the offended person by endeavouring in a truly generous spirit to bury that past in oblivion.

[Footnote 1: Psalm iv. 5.] [Footnote 2: Acts ix. 4.]

UPON FORGIVING OUR ENEMIES.

On the subject of the forgiveness of enemies, Blessed Francis told me of an incident which occurred at Padua (possibly at the time that he was studying there). It appears that certain of the students at that university had a bad habit of prowling about the streets at night, pistol in hand, challenging passers-by with the cry of "Who goes there?" and firing if they did not receive a humble and civil answer.

One of the gang having one night challenged a fellow-student and received no answer, fired, and took such good aim that the poor young man fell dead on the pavement. Horrified and amazed at the fatal result of his mad prank, the student fled, hoping to hide from justice.

The first open door that he saw was that of the dwelling of a good widow, whose son was his friend and fellow-student. Hastily entering, he implored her to hide him in some safe place, confessing what he had done, and that, should he be taken, all was over with him.

The good woman shut him into a little room, secret and safe, and there left him. Not many minutes had elapsed before a melancholy procession approached, and the dead body of her son was brought into the house, the bearers telling the distracted mother in what manner he had been killed, and after a little questioning, giving the name of the youth who had shot her child.

Weeping and broken-hearted, she hurried to the place where she had hidden the wretched homicide, and it was from her lips that he learned who it was that he had deprived of life.

In an agony of shame and grief, tearing his hair, and calling upon death to strike him down, too, he threw himself on his knees before the poor mother; not, indeed, to ask her pardon, but to entreat her to give him up to justice, wishing to expiate publicly a crime so barbarous.

The widow, a most devout and merciful woman, was deeply touched by the youth's repentance, and saw clearly that it was thoughtlessness and not malicious intent that had been the moving spring of the deed. She then assured him that, provided he would ask pardon of God and change his way of life, she would keep her promise and help him to escape. This she did, and by so doing imitated the gentle kindness of the prophet who spared the lives of the Syrian soldiers who had come to murder him, he having them in his power in the midst of Samaria.[1]

So pleasing to God was this poor widow's clemency and forgiveness that He permitted the soul of her murdered son to appear to her, revealing to her that her pardon, granted so readily and sweetly to the man who had unintentionally been his murderer, had obtained for his soul deliverance from Purgatory, in which place he would otherwise have been long detained.

How blessed are the merciful! They shall obtain mercy both for themselves and for others!

[Footnote 1: 4 Reg. vi. 12. 23]

UPON THE VIRTUE OF CONDESCENSION.

I will give you our Blessed Father's views on this subject, first reminding you how unfailingly patient he was with the humours of others, how gentle and forbearing at all times towards his neighbour, and how perseveringly he inculcated the practice of this virtue, not only upon the Daughters of the Visitation, but upon all his spiritual children.

He often said to me: "Oh, how much better it would be to accommodate ourselves to others rather than to want to bend every one to our own ways and opinions! The human mind is like pulp, which takes readily any colour mixed with it. The great thing is to take care that it be not like the chameleon, which, one after the other, takes every colour except white. Condescension, if unaccompanied by frankness and purity, is dangerous, and much to be avoided.

"It is right to take compassion upon sinners, but it must be with the intention of extricating them from the mire, not of slothfully leaving them to rot and perish in it. It is a perverted sort of mercy to look at our neighbour, sunk in the misery of sin, and not venture to extend to him the helping hand of a gentle but out-spoken remonstrance. We must condescend in everything, but only up to the altar steps; that is to say, not beyond the point at which condescension would be a sin, and undeserving of its name. I do not say that we must at every instant reprove the sinner. Charitable prudence demands that we rather wait the moment when he is capable of assimilating the remedies suitable for his malady, and till God shall give to his hearing joy and gladness, and the bones that have been humbled shall rejoice.[1] Turbulent zeal, zeal that is neither moderate nor wise, pulls down in place of building up. There are some who do no good at all, because they wish to do things too well, and who spoil everything they try to mend. We must make haste slowly, as the ancient proverb says. He who walks hurriedly is apt to fall. We must be prudent both in reproving others and in condescending to them. The King's honour loveth judgment."[2]

[Footnote 1: Psalm l. 10.] [Footnote 2: Psalm xcviii. 4.]

HOW BLESSED FRANCIS ADAPTED HIMSELF TO TIMES, PLACES, AND CIRCUMSTANCES.

When the Chablais was restored to the Duke of Savoy, Bishop de Granier, the predecessor of our Holy Founder, eager to further the design of His Highness to bring back into the bosom of the Roman Church the population that had been led astray, sent to it a number of labourers to gather in the harvest. Among these, one of the first to be chosen was our Saint, at that time Provost of the Cathedral Church of St. Peter in Geneva, and consequently next in dignity to the Bishop.

With him were sent some Canons, Parish Priests, and others. Several members of various Religious Orders also presented themselves, eager to be employed in this onerous, if honourable, mission.[1]

It would be impossible to give a just idea of the labours of these missionaries, or of the obstacles which they encountered at the outset of their holy enterprise. The spirit of Blessed Francis was, however, most flexible and accommodating, and greatly tended to further the work of the people's conversion.

He was like the manna which assimilated itself to the palate of whoever tasted it: he made himself all things to all men that he might gain all for Jesus Christ.

In his ordinary mode of conversation and in his dress, which was mean and common, he produced a much less jarring effect upon the minds and eyes of these people than did the members of Religious Orders with their various habits and diversities.

He, as well as the secular Priests who worked under him, sometimes even condescended so far as to wear the short cloaks and high boots usual in the country, so as more easily to gain access to private houses, and not to offend the eyes of the people by the sight of the cassock, which they were unaccustomed to. To this pious stratagem the members of Religious Orders were unwilling to have recourse, their distinctive habit being, in their opinion, almost essential to their profession, or at least so fitting that it might never lawfully be laid aside.

Our Blessed Father went on quite a different tack, and caught more flies with a spoonful of the honey which he was so much in the habit of using, than did all the others with their harsher methods.

Everything about him, whether external or internal, breathed the spirit of conciliation; all his words, gestures, and ways were those of kindliness.

Some wished to make themselves feared; but he desired only to be loved, and to enter men's hearts through the doorway of affection. On this account, whether he spoke in public or in private, he was always more attentively listened to than anyone else.

However much the Protestants might attack him and purposely provoke him, he, on his side, ever dealt with them in a spirit absolutely free from contention, abstaining from anything likely to give offence, having often on his lips those beautiful words of the Apostle: If any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the Church of God.[2]

To come now to the particulars which I promised you, let me tell you how our Blessed Father, having read in St. Augustine's works and in those of other ancient Fathers that in the early centuries Christian Priests, in addressing heretics and schismatics, did not hesitate to call them their brethren, inferred that he might quite lawfully follow so great an example.

By doing so he conciliated these people to such an extent that they flocked to hear him, and were charmed with the sweetness and gentleness of his discourses, the outcome of his overflowing kindliness of heart. This mode of expression was, however, so offensive to preachers who were in the habit of speaking of heretics as rebels against the light, uncircumcised of heart, etc., that they called a meeting, in which they resolved to remonstrate with the Provost (Blessed Francis), and to represent to him that, though he meant well, he was in reality ruining the cause of Catholics.

They insisted that he was flattering the pride so inherent in heresy, that he was lulling the people to sleep in their errors by sewing pillows to their elbows; that it was better to correct them in mercy and justice than to pour on their heads the oil of wheedling, as they called the kindliness of our Saint.

He received their remonstrances pleasantly, and even respectfully, without defending himself in any way, but, on the contrary, appearing to yield to their zeal, albeit somewhat sadly and unwillingly. Finding, however, that he did not begin to act upon their suggestions, as they had promised themselves he would do, some of them sent a written appeal to the Bishop, representing to him that he would have to recall the Provost and his companion missioners, who with their unwise and affected levity ruined in one day more souls than they themselves could convert in a month.

They went on to compare the labour of the missioners to Penelope's web: to say that our Saint preached more like a Huguenot pastor than a Catholic Priest, and, in fine, that he went so far as to call the heretics his brethren, a thing so scandalous that the Protestants had already conceived great hope of bringing him over to their own party.

The good Bishop, however, better informed as to the real state of the case, paid little heed to this appeal, dictated by a bitter zeal, rather than by the true science of the Saints. He merely exhorted each one to persevere, and to remember that every spirit should praise the Lord according to the talents committed to it by God.

Our Blessed Father, being informed of these complaints made against him to his Bishop, would not defend himself, but commended his cause to the judgment of God, and, silently but hopefully, awaited the result. Nor was his expectation disappointed, for experience soon showed that the too ardent eagerness of these zealots was more likely to delay than to advance the work.

To crown all this, the preachers who had objected to his method had ere long themselves to be set aside as unfit.

On one occasion when I was talking with him and had turned the conversation on this subject, he said to me: "These good people looked through coloured spectacles. They saw all things of the same hue as their own glasses. My predecessor soon found out who were the real hindrances to the conversion of the Protestant Cantons."

On my asking him how he could in reason apply the term "brethren" to persons who certainly are not such, since no one can have God for his Father who has not the Catholic Church for his mother, and since, therefore, those who are not in her bosom cannot be our brethren, he said to me: "Ah! but I never call them brethren without adding the epithet erring, a word which marks the distinction with sufficient clearness.

"Besides, they are in fact our brethren by Baptism, which they duly administer and receive. Moreover, they are our brethren according to the flesh, for are we not all children of Adam? Then, too, we are fellow citizens, and subjects of the same earthly prince. Is not that enough to constitute a kind of fraternity between us?

"Lastly, I look upon them as children of the Church, at least in disposition, since they are willing to be instructed; and as my brethren in hope, since they also are called to inherit eternal life. In the early days of the Church it was customary to give the title of brethren to catechumens, even before their baptism."

These reasons satisfied me and made me esteem highly the ingenious method suggested to him by the Holy Spirit to render these unruly and untaught souls docile and tractable.

[Footnote 1: M. Camus must have been misinformed. St. Francis had but few fellow-workers in the early years of his mission in the Chablais. [Ed.]] [Footnote 2: 1 Cor. xi. 16.]

UPON THE DEFERENCE DUE TO OUR INFERIORS AND DEPENDENTS.

Blessed Francis not only taught, but practised deference and a certain obedience towards his inferiors; towards his flock, towards his fellow citizens, and even towards his servants. He obeyed his body servant in what concerned his rising, his going to bed, and his toilet, as if he himself had been the valet and the other the master.

When he sat up far into the night either to study or to write letters, he would beg his servant to go to bed, for fear of tiring him by keeping him up. The man would grumble at his request, as if he were being taken for a lazy, sleepy-headed fellow. Our Blessed Father patiently put up with grumblings of the sort, but would complete what he had in hand as quickly as possible, so as not to keep the man waiting.

One summer morning Blessed Francis awoke very early, and, having some important matter on his mind, called this servant to bring him some necessaries for his toilet. The man, however, was too sound asleep to be roused by his master's voice. The good Prelate therefore, on rising, looked into the adjoining room, thinking that the man must have left it, but finding him fast asleep, and fearing to do him harm by waking him suddenly, dressed without his assistance and betook himself to his prayers, studies, and writing. Later the servant awoke, and dressed, and, coming to his master's room, to his surprise found him deep in his studies. The man asked him abruptly how he had managed without him. "I fetched everything myself," replied the holy Prelate. "Am I not old enough and strong enough for that?" "Would it have been too much trouble to call me?" said the man grumblingly. "No, indeed, my child," said Blessed Francis, "and I assure you that I did call you several times; but at last, thinking that you must have gone out, I got up to see where you were, and, finding you sleeping profoundly, I had not the heart to wake you." "You have the heart, it seems, to turn me into ridicule," retorted the man. "Oh, no, my friend," said Francis. "I was only telling you what happened, without a thought of either blaming you or making fun of you. Come, I promise you that for the future I will never stop calling you till you awake."