Chapter IV. Advice for the interior life

ARTICLE 1, We (mght to cultivate the will more than the understomding.

Application to study is befitting a religious, especially if he is called by his vocation to apostolical labours ; but there are some who devote themselves thereto with more of passion and curiosity than zeal. We are sometimes bent only on filling the mind with such knowledge as serves rather to harden and chill it, than to soften it by devotion, and inflame it with fervour. It is the will we ought principally to cultivate. We have generally sufficient knowledge, but we are not sufficiently united to God. We ought to make it our chief study to acquire the spirit of prayer, and to become filled with a great love of God.

Cardinal du Perron, when dying, testified his repentance for having during life applied himself more to perfecting Hb understanding by the sciences than his will by the exercises of the interior life. Some of ns will perhaps feel the same regret in that last passage. "Woe to that knowledge which makes us neither humbler nor better men !

Article II

The path qfjaith is a safer vxiy to perfection them that of sensible graces, God leads souls by two sorts of ways ; some He guides by interior Ughts, consolations, and sentiments of devotion. And this way is the most dangerous; because it gives occasion to self-love to luxuriate in favours of this kind, on account of the relish we find in them^ and the high esteem we hence conceive of ourselves. Along this road Ues the precipice of the bad angels; whose sin was pride^ which pufifed them up by the consideration of the spiritual goods they had received from God.

Others are led by reason and faith, assisted by the ordinary aids of actual graces, but without sensible consolations, except on rare occasions. And this road is the safest, and leads most directly to perfection, because therein we walk more in spiritual poverty and humility.

Article III

The best mode of practising the virtvss, We ought to tend continually towards God, without stopping short at His gifts and graces. Some are too much engrossed with the formal objects of virtues, which are merely natural. It would be far better to act on a principle which would raise us straight to Gk)d, as does divine love. It is true that all the virtues lead US to Him by their own proper motives, but it is with greater slowness and with less perfection.

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There are some whose minds are intent upon discovering several motives of virtue with a view of performing their actions thereby, thinking by such means to render them more agreeable to God. We ought merely to try to ascertain what virtue God desires we should practise in each action, and then simply perform that action in the presence of God, according to the intention with which He inspires us, and with the motive and purpose of imitating our Lord.

It is to this end that the love of our Lord is so strongly urged upon us, the motive of which is easy, suited to all the world, and full of sweetness. And the good that is done by the principle of this love, — an act of temperance, for example, performed with the view of imitating our Lord and pleasing Him, — is far more excellent than when it is done simply to observe such moderation as temperance prescribes.