Of Final Perseverance

The consideration of the eternal and infinite joys of heaven should undoubtedly excite in us an ardent desire of the glory of the elect, and prove a powerful incentive to the practice of solid virtue, which is the direct path thereto. But the inestimable treasure of solid virtue, and of perfect happiness in heaven, shall never be acquired except by perseverance, for it is only ‘he that shall persevere to the end’ that shall be perfect in the sight of God, and consequently that ‘shall be saved.’¹1Matt. x. 22. p. 414Perseverance is a certain mark of predestination, and the seal of the elect; it is the soul, the sign, the glorious crown of all virtues, which, without it, are destitute of all value and merit. To convince ourselves well of the necessity of perseverance, we shall terminate this work by a very concise explanation of the admirable privileges awarded to our constancy in good, the evils which follow our instability in virtue, and the most appropriate means of rectifying the natural mutability of our hearts.

Article I

Privileges awarded to our constancy in good

1. It assimilates us to the saints and to God Himself

The just man, firm and constant in good, acquires even here below a happy stability almost comparable to the new and incorruptible life on which he will enter on the last day. Even in this life the just man who perseveres is superior to all the vicissitudes and inconstancy of other men; he confidently maintains the equilibrium of his soul in the balance of justice; his virtue is not subject to decay, and the fadeless flowers of sanctity which it produces preserve in his heart a perpetual spring in which winter and storms are alike unknown. He even becomes, in some sort, as immutable as God; and it may be said of him, though in a different degree, that he is not subject ‘to change, or any shadow of alteration.’²2James i. 17. It is true Job has said that ‘among the saints none are unchangeable,’³3Job xv. 15. and that man of his nature ‘never continueth in the same state;’⁴4Ibid. xiv. 2. still, by the grace of perseverance, a friend of God elevates p. 415himself to the sublime degree of a kind of resemblance to the divine immutability. How excellent, therefore, is this virtue of constancy in good, which communicates to us, even in this valley of tears, the inestimable privilege of a similarity with the saints and the Divinity itself!

2. It gives us a firm hope of final perseverance and of our eternal predestination

Theologians teach that it is possible in this life to recognise, or at least foresee, by certain marks, what souls shall be numbered amongst the elect and associated in the felicity of the blessed; but they own at the same time that the greater number of those marks are equivocal and subject to error, and that frequently they are deceptive. Nevertheless, all agree in saying that constancy in good is the most certain indication of our predestination. This constancy commences here below, by a kind of anticipation, to confirm us in an unalterable instability which is the appanage of eternal beatitude. Because the just man directs all his steps towards the heavenly Jerusalem, he is entitled to console himself with the legitimate hope of one day being a citizen of that holy city. When the Doctors of the Church speak of the divine decree concerning the salvation of men, or rather of their predestination, they represent it to us as a mysterious chain, composed of innumerable links, which, on the side of God, are the successive graces which He grants to His elect, and by which most certainly He has made them reach heaven, but this, however, without compromising their liberty; and which are on our side the continual acts of virtue by which we correspond faithfully with the divine inspirations.

Each correspondence with grace is a new act of perseverance: the last of these acts, to which all those which precede it refer as their term, completes final perseverance, and becomes the glorious crown of the whole life. Now, just as he who holds the first links of a chain is sure of being able to draw the entire of it to him, even so the just man who, through life, perseveres constantly in the practice of good works, acquires the right to hope that he shall be firm unto death, since the continual practice of virtue is an excellent disposition of soul to merit perseverance and eternal happiness which is its fruit.

Strong in this truth, Paul, that vessel of election, foretold his own predestination with the certainty of a divine inspiration. ‘There is laid up for me a crown of justice,’ said he, ‘which the Lord, the just Judge, will render to me on the great day’⁵52 Tim. iv. 8. of eternity. Elsewhere he had declared that he looked upon himself as ‘one born out of due time,’⁶61 Cor. xv. 8. and ‘the chief of sinners;’⁷71 Tim. i. 15. but at the end of his life his confidence revives, and no longer a prey to disquietude, he says to his disciples, ‘The Lord hath delivered me and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom.’⁸82 Tim. iv. 18.

His perseverance in piety, sustained during a long succession of years, was the foundation of this confidence. ‘I have fought the good fight,’ he says, ‘I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; my conscience bears me this testimony.’ From this long habit of virtue, he feared not to conclude with steadfast hope: ‘Yes, the divine goodness will grant me the grace of final perseverance, the crown of justice is reserved for me.’ So sure and infallible a pledge to the apostle of his election to glory was the remembrance of his constancy p. 416Now, what motive could be more capable than this of deciding a soul desirous of salvation to walk unflinchingly in the paths of sanctity?

3. It perfects and crowns the other virtues

This is the doctrine of the sainted Bishop of Hippo: ‘It is of little moment to begin well,’ said he, ‘but the important thing is to end well.’⁹9Serm. on Ps. li. St. Isidore of Spain inculcates the same: ‘It is not he who acts well who is happy, it is he who does so always.’ St. Jerome adds: ‘In a Christian it is not the beginning but the continuation and end that is examined; Paul commenced ill and he ended well. The beginnings of Judas were promising, but his end was execrable for his treason. True virtue, therefore, does not consist in beginning well, but in persevering.’ Thus, according to the doctrine of the Fathers, it is perseverance alone which impresses on our actions the seal of solid virtue, and renders them meritorious. It is true that a degree of glory corresponds to each virtuous action, but this degree shall be granted finally to such only as persevere. ‘All the virtues run,’ says Peter of Blois, ‘but it is only perseverance that shall be crowned.’¹⁰10Letter 22. ‘All the virtues,’ continues St. Bonaventure, ‘merit a crown, but they only obtain it by perseverance.’ Let us judge by this how great is the value and the excellence of that virtue which alone insures to us the recompense due to the others.

4. It is itself a special virtue

Constancy in good is not only the complement, the perfection, the soul of all virtues and their one title to p. 417the eternal recompense, it is also a special virtue and distinct from the others, a virtue which causes man to persevere, says St. Thomas, ‘as far as it is necessary in good and meritorious actions.’ ‘All that presents a particular difficulty to surmount,’ continues this holy doctor, ‘constitutes the principle of a special virtue. Now there is a particular difficulty in persevering for a long time in anything painful; consequently it is a special virtue to continue steadfast to the end, and unto a perfect consummation in the practice of good.’¹¹112, q. 137, a. 1.

In the accomplishment of virtuous actions, their duration, even the labour and pain which they cost, are circumstances which present a particular difficulty, even a very considerable difficulty, which we cannot overcome without the help of a particular virtue. This virtue is perseverance: it accompanies and animates our good works, it imparts to them a special merit, and distinct from the merit attributed to the substance of the other virtues which have been the principle of it. Such, I repeat, is the excellence and the utility of constancy in good.

5. We owe to it the consummation of our salvation

The work of our redemption was consummated by the invincible constancy of the Saviour, who subjected Himself to the severest hardships during the space of thirty-three years, and who endured unheard-of torments and anguish in His Passion; the excess and the long duration of His pains and sufferings were never able to damp His courage. With truth could He say to His Father, on the eve of His Passion: ‘I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do,’ and justly too could He cry out on the Cross: ‘All is consummated.’ The scribes and the pharisees ask Him to descend from the cruel gibbet to which they have attached Him: they promise Him on this condition to believe in Him; but He remains immovable, He heeds neither their flattering invitations nor their deceitful promises, and He perseveres in the midst of the most excruciating tortures, until He has gained a complete victory by the sacrifice of His life. What an incentive to us to esteem perseverance above all other goods! In fact, so excellent are its prerogatives, that it is an excess of folly not to insure to ourselves its possession; but, ‘having put our hand to the plough to look back,’ and through a shameful cowardice to desert from the way of perfection on which we had already entered! O immutable God! fix, I beseech Thee, the levity and inconstancy of my soul, and when my imprudence would alienate me from the paths of piety, do Thou so powerfully restrain my steps ‘that neither tribulations, nor distress, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor danger, nor persecution, nor the sword’ may ever divert me from it.

Article II

How prejudicial inconstancy in good is to us

1. It renders all our past merits useless

When instability leads a soul into mortal sin it despoils it of all the merits it had acquired previous to its fall. No, says St. Basil, ‘the pains we have taken shall receive no reward, unless we persevere to the end;’ ‘without perseverance,’ adds St. Bernard, ‘he who fights shall obtain no victory, and even the conqueror himself receives no crown.’ Had Mary Magdalen quitted our p. 418Lord’s tomb when the apostles abandoned it, she would have been deprived of the happy privilege of seeing Jesus Christ immediately after He had risen; but in consequence of having remained perseveringly near the sepulchre she merited to be the first witness of the Saviour’s Resurrection.

If ‘it is good for a man to bear the Lord’s yoke from his youth,’ it is the climax of happiness to bear it constantly to the end of life. The workmen who came first to the vineyard, and who bore the weight of the day and of the heat, would have laboured in vain, had they not persevered in their task till sunset. In vain had Matthias quitted the table of imposts, Peter and Andrew renounced their nets and John left his father, if they had not constantly followed and accompanied Jesus; for ‘it avails nothing,’ says St. Bernard, ‘to follow the Saviour if we do not arrive with Him.’ Yes; without perseverance, all the good we do, the afflictions we endure, the injuries we bear, are useless and void of fruit. Without constancy in good, nothing is perfect, nothing accomplished, nothing profitable. Perseverance alone crowns all good works; it is by it alone that we reach the term of our course, that we merit the reward of our efforts. Though a man were, like Anthony, to distribute his treasures to the poor; though, like another William, he should relentlessly tear his body with the discipline and the hair shirt; though, like Hilarion, he should attenuate himself by a perpetual fast; though he should endure all the tortures which the rage of tyrants has been able to invent against the martyrs, still, should he by the greatest of all misfortunes fail to persevere to the end of his life, all these good works would avail nothing towards his salvation. This is a dogma of faith. To p. 419whom in reality has our Divine Lord promised salvation? To those who have fought? No; because there are numbers who for a long time strove to win heaven, and who are now reprobates in hell. To those who have run? No; for many have walked with rapid strides in the paths of virtue, but having stopped in the midst of their course, they have forfeited their crown and are lost for ever. To those who had the faith? No; for how many are there not who have received this gift and have become the prey of hell! Who then can hope for a place amongst the elect?

O God of truth! manifest to us the unfathomable mystery of Thy justice. Come, O mortals! attend and hearken to the divine oracle: ‘He that shall persevere,’ says the Saviour, He that shall persevere ‘unto the end, shall be saved.’ ‘All our hopes,’ says Eusebius Emissenus, ‘depend on the last act of our life;’ because inconstancy may rob us of all the merits already acquired.

Oh, irreparable injury! oh, fearful loss incurred by instability in virtue. Of what avail would it be to have amassed all the wealth of the Indies, should we be shipwrecked on reaching the port? ‘Of what advantage is it to me,’ says the Bishop of Emesus, ‘that my well-sown fields be apparently covered with a rich harvest, if at the season for reaping a violent hurricane and torrents of rain carry off all my corn?’ What avails it now to Solomon and Tertullian to have inaugurated their lives with a brilliant lustre of virtue, if they have terminated their career in the dark clouds of inconstancy? What avails it to the dastardly companion of the forty generous soldiers of Sebastian to have endured a long martyrdom with them in the frozen lake, since before death he basely denied his faith and perished eternally? What reward do those two Japanese Christians now enjoy who bore for several hours the torments of a slow fire in defence of the Faith, but who afterwards apostatised, and who were nevertheless cast into the flames, by order of the tyrant? Alas! they died apostates, they whose early promises seemed to prognosticate that they would win the martyr’s crown. How true is this reflection of St. Gregory the Great: ‘In vain do we do good if we discontinue it before the end of life:’ for he ‘runs in vain, who halts through weakness before reaching the goal.’ Once more, therefore, we must own it; yes, inconstancy is a cruel robber which despoils us of all the merits we had already acquired.

2. It leads us to perdition

This mobility of the soul, always fluctuating in its conduct, leads it insensibly from fall to fall to the brink of the abyss, and almost infallibly terminates its life by a last act of inconstancy which decides and consummates its eternal ruin. How, in reality, can this perpetual vacillation between good and evil, between tepidity and fervour, inspire us with a well-founded hope of obtaining the grace of final perseverance? Does it not, on the contrary, give us reason to apprehend that, having so frequently resisted the loving cares of our Divine Lord, we shall die at enmity with Him?

Behold the great, the fearful evil which our inconstancy in the way of perfection causes us; it disposes and insensibly leads our soul to this last and irreparable infidelity, which consummates our entire and definitive separation from God. An unalterable firmness in well-doing confirms us in a happy stability of justice, which p. 420merits and insures for us the gift of final perseverance; but on the contrary, a perpetual inequality of behaviour leads us infallibly to this last and mortal inconstancy, which is man’s greatest misfortune, since it causes his eternal damnation: ‘Lord, who art always the self-same,’ permit not that I be of the number of ‘those wandering stars to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever.’ Grant rather that I may be of the number of those faithful servants whom, in reward for their perseverance, Thou hast promised by Thy beloved disciple to establish as so many pillars in the Temple of God.

3. It augments the trials and difficulties of virtue

But let us suppose that we should not always impute to our instability of character that last and deplorable inconstancy which terminates a life in sin; still we may at least confidently assert that it increases and aggravates the difficulties we already experience in following the ways of justice. The inconstant man resembles the boatman who reascends the current of a rapid river, and who can only advance his barque by triumphing over the resistance of the opposing torrent by unheard-of exertions. Should his strength give way, should his weary hand relax its hold of the oar, the boat, abandoned by its pilot, is carried away by the river in its course, and in a moment the labour of the day is lost. A new Sisyphus, the inconstant man rolls a rock which falls back by its own weight from the declivity of the mountain the moment that the effort by which he was raising it is interrupted; not only is all his fatigue thus unavailing, but to reascend to the same point he must overcome still greater obstacles; before resuming his first efforts must refasten the cord which the enormous weight has broken. With truth, therefore, has Ecclesiasticus said: ‘When one buildeth up and another pulleth down; what profit have they but the labour?’ If to-day thou destroyest by thy tepidity what thy fervour built up yesterday; if to-morrow thou tearest up by thy inconstancy what thy piety has planted to-day, what fruit wilt thou gather therefrom except a double trouble?

Inconstancy prevents us from acquiring the habit of virtue; should we have already acquired it, it considerably diminishes its strength, and sometimes occasions its utter ruin. It even causes us to contract habits of vice; or else it reawakens those which lay dormant; it rekindles and inflames the fire which seemed extinguished beneath the ashes. Therefore it is that the unstable soul, far from ever attaining solid virtue, goes so far as to practise with difficulty the good for which it formerly possessed much facility, so that its spiritual cure becomes, I will not say impossible, but at least extremely difficult.

In a word, this perpetual instability, this continual fluctuation between good and evil, destroys the virtues we had acquired, revives the obstacles that we had surmounted in the way of virtue, and finally deprives us of the hope of ever attaining to perfection. A man who frequently relapses into the same disease finds his constitution gradually weakened, he even sees his life threatened with an approaching dissolution; thus, he who relaxes from his first fervour and obeys the instability of a tepid and languishing will already diffuses an odour of death, as it were, into his soul: he is no longer fit to receive those special graces, the privation of which delivers us up defenceless to the terrible assaults of Satan, and exposes us to an almost inevitable ruin. It was the experience of this truth that p. 421made St. Laurence Justinian say: ‘Those persons descend more promptly than they have ascended, they are less holy at the end than at the commencement, and it would have been better for them not to have known the truth or entered the difficult paths of justice than to have received the light, and shamefully recoiled after having begun.’ Oh, great and immutable God! how can I fail to detest and abhor my inconstancy, which is the source of so many misfortunes!

4. It renders us deserving of contempt

Instability in virtue debases and renders us contemptible in the eyes of angels and of men, and even of the demons. The Holy Ghost compares the inconstant and unstable man to a fool, ‘who changes as the moon.’ All who know him despise him, they laugh at his fine resolutions, and with St. Prosper, they style him a saint of a few weeks.

What do I say? the devil himself is no more disturbed by the vain desires of such an one, than the rock is moved by the dashing of the waves which vent their rage upon it. While the unstable man forms the most praiseworthy designs, while he declares his determination to extirpate his vices, while his imagination has already reached the pinnacle of perfection, Satan, concealed beside him, amuses himself at his expense, well knowing that this saint of an hour will speedily relapse into his vicious habits. ‘The reason is,’ says St. Bernard, ‘that the devil fears nothing but perseverance, as he is not ignorant that it alone deserves the crown’ which our Lord has promised.

Oh, how foolish then are those who, after having ‘borne the burden and heats of the day,’ having, with p. 422a laudable emulation, long ‘run in the race,’ and for a considerable time courageously fought against the old serpent, have at length succumbed to lassitude, deserted from the army and laid down their arms; have quitted the Lord’s vineyard, and ceased to labour at the last hour of the day, when they were on the point of receiving the reward, and the crown was about to be placed on their head. How foolish are those ‘who went and wept, casting their seeds,’ but who, in the time of harvest, have slothfully suspended their sickles on a tree, when, by bearing a little more trouble, ‘they would come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves.’ Volatile men! how great, then, is your folly ‘that, whereas you began in the spirit, you would now be made perfect in the flesh.’ That, after having undergone so many labours, borne such countless and painful evils, triumphed so frequently over such a host of enemies, you allowed yourself to be vanquished by your instability of mind, and shamefully succumbed at the moment that you were about to reach the term? How deplorable is this fatal negligence by which you so unworthily sacrificed the treasures which you had already amassed! How applicable to you is not this reproach of the Gospel: ‘Behold men who began to build and were not able to finish’ the edifice! ‘Therefore, my beloved brethren,’ says the apostle to us, let us blush at our faults, ‘let us’ be steadfast ‘and immovable’ in our resolution of leading a more holy life, ‘knowing that our labour is not vain in the Lord;’ ‘let us so run in the race of virtue that we may obtain the prize.’ Let us so courageously fight in the glorious arena of justice as to triumph over our enemies, ‘for he alone who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned,’ and whoever perseveres not to the end has not legitimately done so. ‘Let us, then, be steadfast in the way of the Lord,’ and weary not of suffering that we may not lose the reward of our works.

Yes, Eternal Father, ‘as long as breath remaineth in me I will not depart from my justification which I have begun;’ ‘I will be faithful until death to the care of my perfection, that I may receive the crown of life.’ Convinced of the advantages of perseverance, and of the misfortunes of which inconstancy is the source, I firmly resolve never to diverge from the paths of rectitude. ‘Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, that I only bring to pass that which I have purposed, having a belief that it might be done by Thee.’

Article III

Remedies for inconstancy

In order to confirm our resolutions of persevering in virtue, it is necessary to know the remedies which we should oppose to our inconstancy, that is to say, the means calculated to fix the natural mutability of our heart, and at least to diminish, if not perfectly destroy, the obstacles which are to be met with in the pursuit of perfection.

I will point out three principal ones, which are: 1, frequently to recall to mind the motives for perseverance; 2, to unite ourselves frequently to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Eucharist; 3, to foresee and to despise the obstacles which might shake our constancy.

1. Consideration of the motives for perseverance

Let us often resume the consideration of the advantages granted to perseverance, of the evils which follow inconstancy, and, in fine, of all the motives that have p. 423been presented to us in the preceding chapters, to determine us to the practice of solid virtue. For reason teaches us that what confers and increases life may likewise ensure its preservation; consequently, the motives which have inspired us with the resolution to enter the paths of justice, cannot fail to maintain and fortify us in the will to persevere in it to the end. In effect, since virtue is as amiable, as attractive, as useful to-day as it was yesterday, since God is always the same, and His infinite perfections are immutable and always deserving of the same worship and love, the pious and frequent remembrance of these considerations must infallibly nurture and preserve the holy fire of fervour which they have already kindled in our soul.

Let us also sometimes recall to mind the reward granted to those who, by their undeviating stability in good, have gained the glorious crown of the elect, and the sad examples, on the contrary, of those who have been lost through their inconstancy. Had Saul, Judas, and Origen persevered, the one would have been numbered amongst the holiest of the kings of Israel, the other would shine as a bright star amongst the twelve apostles, and the last would occupy a throne amid the doctors of the Church: but how much are they to be pitied for having fallen away from the way of virtue on which they had entered!

On what a lofty throne would not that prophet now be seated whom God sent to Jeroboam at Bethel with this prohibition: ‘Thou shalt not eat bread, nor drink water, nor return by the same way as thou camest,’ had he obeyed the Lord’s commands to the end with the same exactitude with which he commenced to execute them! At first, without allowing himself to be intimidated by p. 424the king’s presence, he courageously exclaimed ‘against the altar in the name of the Lord:’ he rejected the presents offered to him by the prince: he refused his invitation to his table; he abstained for a long time from eating and drinking, he even returned to his own country by a different route, according to the order he had received to this effect. Oh, how promising were these beginnings, how heroic was this behaviour, how exemplary this obedience!

But, alas! inconstancy triumphing over his courage obscured the glory of his former fidelity; he allowed himself to be seduced by a false prophet to whose house he consented to return; and, contrary to the prohibition of God, ‘he ate bread and drank water there,’ and by this unworthy weakness forfeited all the merit he had previously acquired; but God punished him ‘by delivering him to a lion, which tore and killed him on the way.’

On the other hand, what imperishable glory did not Eleazar merit by his inviolable fidelity to the faith of his fathers! He ‘was one of the chief of the Scribes, considering the dignity of his age and his ancient years, and his good life and conversation from a child; and choosing rather a glorious death than a hateful life, went forward voluntarily to the torment, determined not to do any unlawful things for the love of life, nor even to dissimulate obedience to the king by eating the forbidden meat. He died thus, leaving to the whole nation an example of virtue and fortitude.’

Such examples, but particularly those of the holy martyrs and the other Christian heroes, cannot but encourage us to imitate their constancy: it is by recalling their generous actions that we accustom ourselves to become, like them, stable in good.

2. Frequent union with Jesus Christ present in the Blessed Eucharist

A frequent union with God, either by spiritual or sacramental communion, is another very excellent means of acquiring this holy stability; because it is at that time that our prayers are most efficacious for the obtaining of the gift of final perseverance. ‘If Elias, sustained by food,’ which was but the figure of this divine nutriment, ‘could walk forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God,’ how much more constancy and energy will not this Bread of the strong impart to enable us to ascend to the summit of perfection!

Yes; without doubt, this celestial food will communicate to us abundantly a strength equal to our wants. In presence of this sacred Ark, the rapid and inconstant waves of our heart, that is to say its perpetual instability, will be stilled as were the waters of the Jordan in former times, and become firm as an immovable wall. Whoever entertains a genuine devotion to the adorable Eucharist, will find in it a certain security for his good resolutions despite the violence of temptations, the fickleness of his disposition, and the overwhelming torrent of evil desires. ‘Like a faithful sentinel he will stand upon his watch and fix his foot upon this tower.’ He will joyfully exclaim with the apostle: ‘I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me.’

Sustained by this divine food, we shall be able to conquer the difficulties of virtue, to surmount the subtleties of self-love, to elude the snares which the world spreads for us, to foil the artifices of hell, and to avoid the rocks against which our constancy was wont to suffer shipwreck. Perseverance and fortitude, as the two companions and p. 425stays of our life, will lead us in safety in the path of Justice to Eternity’s desirable port. Behold the salutary effects which the adorable Eucharist may produce in us.

3. To foresee and despise the difficulties of virtue

The third means of perseverance consists in anticipating the causes of our inconstancy in virtue, and in fortifying our heart against such difficulties, but above all against its own instability. Our good-will usually encounters two chief obstacles in the service of God: the trials which are inseparable from it, and the very continuity of perseverance in good.

To the first obstacle, let us oppose a courage, which, triumphing over the repugnance of nature, shall cause us to despise all the trouble attached to the performance of the works: let us commence the good which we wish to do, with a determination of will, proportionate to the resistance we expect to find in it. For to attack the enemy deliberately is to have already vanquished him: to commence an action courageously is almost the same thing as to have consummated it, and in fine, to confront obstacles with generosity of spirit is equivalent to the removal of them.

Far from us be all pusillanimous procrastination; let us perform our good works diligently: emulating the example of Samson, let us seize ‘the young lion,’ whose roaring would terrify cowards, let us throw him down, let us ‘tear him in pieces as we would a kid.’ If we obtain this victory, what seemed difficult and, as it were, impossible to us, shall become light and easy.

A second and no less serious impediment to virtue is the thought of the length of time during which we shall have to do violence to ourselves. This temptation p. 426is the more dangerous in that it induces sadness, disgust, and discouragement. We shall surmount this fear by the following means.

1. Let us recur to a pious stratagem against ourselves. Let us propose to ourselves to continue such a good action for one hour only, or at most for one or two days, without concerning ourselves as to what we shall do afterwards. Experienced persons affirm that there is no greater solace for our anxiety than this.

2. Let us contrast the length of time during which our efforts shall have to last with the eternity of glory which they will merit for us, and we shall see our apprehensions of an unlimited perseverance vanish like smoke. Besides, who has promised that we should live to an advanced age? It may be that death has already marked us out to be immediately his victim. Perhaps a few months hence our funeral rites shall be celebrated. Let us then devote to virtue at least the few days that remain to us.

But should our pilgrimage be prolonged, does not Almighty God deserve that we should consecrate to Him every moment of our lives? Oh heavens! when we received baptism, we bound ourselves by a solemn vow, pronounced by our sponsors in our name, to be faithful in the divine service to our last breath. But alas! the moment we received the use of reason, though we should immediately have offered a homage of it to God by the donation of our heart, we have only sinned against Him.

Ungrateful that we are! by a treason as shameful as it is criminal we cast off the yoke of the best of Masters, we incurred the guilt of sin at the same moment that we became endowed with reason, and since that first iniquity, we have lost the choicest years of our life in forgetfulness of God and in sinning against Him.

Is it not just, therefore, that to make full restitution to our Sovereign Lord, or at least to repair our past life, we should reserve the remainder of it for Him to whom our whole being belongs under so many titles? And since He has loved us from all eternity, since He has not loved Himself prior to loving us, and that He desires to continue to love us for endless ages, should we not be monsters of ingratitude were we to refuse to consecrate to His service the short time that remains to us? The vain pretext of the length of time during which we shall have to persevere, rests, as we may perceive, on a very frail foundation. And yet it is an obstacle which appals countless dastardly and timid souls, and diverts them from a virtuous life.

To fortify our courage, let us, in terminating this chapter, repeat these beautiful words of St. Cyprian: ‘We conjure you by our common faith to preserve your glory by the courageous practice of a persevering virtue,’ and not to abandon the path of Justice, either on account of the difficulty of the labour or the length of time that it must last, but rather guarantee yourself against the inconstancy of your heart by continual docility to grace, and by employing faithfully the means vouchsafed by the Divine Goodness for your instruction.