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Curiosity, ambition, disquiet, the not adverting to,
or not considering, the end for which we are in this
world, are the causes why we have a thousand times
more hindrance than business, more worries than work,
more occupation than profit: and these are the
embarrassments, Theotimus, that is, the silly, vain
and superfluous undertakings with which we charge
ourselves, that turn us from the love of God, and not
the true and lawful exercises of our vocations.
David, and, after him, S. Louis, in the press of the
perils, toils and travails which they endured, as
well in peace as in war, did not cease to sing in
truth: What have I in heaven, and besides thee what
do I desire upon earth?(1)
S. Bernard lost none of the progress which he
desired to make in this holy love, though he were in
the courts and armies of great princes, where he
laboured to bring matters of state to the service of
God's glory; he changed his habitation, but he
changed not his heart, nor did his heart change its
love, nor his love its object; and, to speak his own
language, these changes were made in him but not of
him, since although his employments were very
different, yet he was indifferent to all employment,
and different from them all, not receiving the colour
of his affairs and conversations, as the chameleon
does that of the places where it is, but remaining
ever wholly united to God, ever white in purity, ever
red with charity, and ever full of humility. I am not
ignorant, Theotimus, what the wise man's counsel is:
He ever flies the court and legal strife
Who seeks to sow the seeds of holy life:
Rarely do camps effect the soul's increase,
Virtue and faith are daughters unto peace.
And the Israelites had good reason to excuse
themselves to the Babylonians, who urged them to sing
the sacred canticles of Sion: How shall we sing the
song of the Lord in a strange land?(2) But do you not
also mark that those poor people were not only among
the Babylonians but were also their captives.
Whoever is a slave to courtly favours, the prizes
of the law, the honours of war, - Alas! all is over
with him, he cannot sing the hymn of heavenly love.
But he who is only at court, in war, at the
tribunals, by duty - God helps him, and heavenly
sweetness is as an epithem on his heart, to preserve
him from the plague which reigns in those places.
While the plague afflicted the Milanese, S. Charles
never made any difficulty in frequenting the houses
and touching the persons that were infected. Yet,
Theotimus, he only frequented and touched them, so
far forth as the necessity of God's work required,
nor would he for the world have thrust himself into
danger without true necessity, lest he should commit
the sin of tempting God. So that he was never touched
with any infection, God's Providence preserving him
who had so pure a confidence in it, that it had no
mixture either of fear or rashness.
In like manner God takes care of those who go not
to the court, to the bar, to war, except by the
necessity of their duty; and in that case a man is
neither to be so scrupulous as to abandon good and
lawful affairs by not going, nor so overweening and
presumptuous as to go thither or stay there without
the express necessity of duty and affairs.
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