On the Love of God

You wish me to explain for what reason and in what measure we should love God.

I should say that God Himself is the motive of our love to Him, and that the measure of due love is to be without measure. Is this clear enough? Perhaps it may be for a person of intelligence, but I desire to answer for both the learned and unlearned; and, though I may have said enough for the former, I must remember others also. For them I will unfold my meaning, and perhaps add somewhat to it.

Two things there are that move us to love God for Himself: nothing is more reasonable; nothing is more profitable.

The question, What binds us to love God? may either mean—What is His title to our love? or, How will it profit us to love God? To both these forms of the question there is but one answer: The motive for loving God, is God. No title can be stronger than this: God gave Himself to us in spite of our unworthiness, and, being God, what could He give us of greater worth than Himself? If, then, by asking, why we are bound to love God, we mean, what is His claim, the answer is: Especially this, that He first loved us. This gives Him a right to our love in return; above all, considering who He is that loves, what His loved ones are, and in what way He loves them. For who is He that loves us, but He of whom every spirit bears witness: "Thou art my God, Thou hast no need of my goods"? and His love is it not that charity that seeks not its own interests? But on whom is fastened this unselfish love? The Apostle answers: "When we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God." God has loved us disinterestedly, and while yet we were His enemies. But how has He loved us? St. John says to this extreme: "God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son." St. Paul adds: "He hath not spared His only begotten Son, but hath delivered Him up for us;" and the Son says of Himself, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." These are the claims which God, the Holy, the sovereignly great and Almighty, has upon the love of infinitely little, weak, and sinful man. It may be said: Yes, this is true of mankind, but it is not so of angels. I know it; for angels the same was not needful. Moreover, He who has helped man in his misery preserved the angels from falling into the like; and if God's love for men has found them a way of escape, it is by the self-same that He kept the angels from a fall like ours.

Those who have acknowledged what I have said must surely own our obligation to love God. But if there be infidels who will not do so much, God has wherewith to confound their ingratitude in the goods beyond number with which He enriches soul and body. Is it not from Him that man receives the bread which sustains, the light which enlightens him, the air which he breathes? If I mention these first, it is not that I account them chief, for they only concern the body, but they are the most necessary. For our chief goods we must look into the soul, the superior part of our being. Those goods are—excellence, intelligence, and virtue. When I speak of excellence in man, I mean the free will which is in him, it being this which lifts him above all other living beings and places them under his dominion. Intelligence proves to him his excellence, and at the same time proves that he owes it not to himself; and, lastly, virtue makes him seek ardently, and when he has found, embrace vehemently, Him whose work he is. These three goods present each of them two aspects. Excellence is seen as the prerogative proper to human nature, and also as causing that fear which man has always produced in every other living being. Intelligence perceives the dignity of man, but at the same time owns that though in him, yet it is not of him; and, lastly, virtue in its double action provokes to an eager seeking for Him to whom we owe existence, and, when found, as eager a clinging to Him. Moreover, excellence without intelligence is worthless; and intelligence without virtue can only harm; as the following reasoning proves. No intelligence can take pride in its existence without knowing that it exists; but if, knowing that it exists, it ignores that it does so, not by itself, but by some other, and glorifies itself in itself, not in God, it should consider the words of the Apostle: "What hast thou that thou hast not received? Why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" He says not merely, "why dost thou glory?" but he adds, "as if thou hadst not received it," showing that it is not blameworthy to glory in having it, but to glory as not having received it. With good reason is such glorying termed vainglory, because it fails to rest upon the solid rock of truth. The Apostle distinguishes this from just glory by saying: "He that glorieth may glory in the Lord, that is in the truth, for God is truth."

We see then that there are two things to know: First, what we are; then, that we are not such of ourselves. If we miss either of these two, we either shall not glory at all, or the glory that we take to ourselves will be "vain." Finally, "if thou know not thyself, go forth and wander after the flocks of thy companions." This is in truth what happens; for when a man in honour knows not his own dignity, he is justly compared, by reason of such ignorance, to the animals that share with him in the corruption and perishing life of this world. Not knowing itself, the creature which reason distinguishes from the beasts confounds itself with them; because, not knowing its own glory, which is all within, it gives way to vain curiosity and occupies itself with external and sensible beauty. It sinks into the likeness of lower creatures by not knowing that it has received a greater thing than they. And this is an ignorance we must sedulously guard against. We must by no means esteem ourselves to be less than God has made us. But with still greater care we must avoid that other ignorance which makes us attribute more to ourselves than we possess; which we do when we mistakenly impute to ourselves the gifts we may be conscious of. Besides these two kinds of ignorance, there remains, to be still more detested and fled from, the presumption which would lead us knowingly to take pride in the good of which we may be conscious, without fear of robbing another of the glory due to Him for things which we well know do not come from ourselves. In the first case, we glory not at all. In the second, we glory, but not in God. In the third, we sin no longer ignorantly but deliberately by usurping that which belongs to God alone. This audacity, compared with the second fault, is greater in this: that it despises God, whereas the other did not know Him. Compared with the first, it assimilates us to devils; whereas the other made us like the beasts. Pride alone, the greatest of all evils, can make us guilty of using the gifts we have received as if they were ours by nature, and of robbing our Benefactor, for our own benefit, of the glory which is His by right. Therefore to.excellence and intelligence we must add virtue, their proper fruit. It is by virtue that we seek and attain to the generous Author of all things, Him to whom we ought in all things to render the glory which belongs to Him; otherwise we shall suffer for having known that which was right, and neglected to do it. He that does so has not used His intelligence for good, but "hath devised iniquity on his bed;" he has tried, like a wicked servant, to turn aside and appropriate the glory his good Master should have received, knowing well by the gift of intelligence that he himself had no claim to it. It is clear that excellence without intelligence is useless, and that intelligence without virtue leads to ruin. But, to the man that possesses virtue, neither intelligence nor excellence can be hurtful; he lifts up his voice and praises God eagerly, saying: "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name be the glory;" which is to say: "Lord, we lay no claim to intelligence, or excellence; we refer all to Thee, for from Thee we have all that we have."

But we are somewhat wandering, in our desire to prove that they who know not Christ, even they, are sufficiently taught by the natural law, and by the gifts they possess of body and soul, to love God for God's own sake. To repeat in few words what was said above: Where is the infidel who does not know that from Him alone who makes His sun to shine upon the just and unjust, and the rain to fall upon saints and sinners, from Him alone he has received all that is necessary for life; light, air, and food? What man, be he never so impious, refers the excellence peculiar to the human race to any other but to Him who says in Genesis, "Let us make man to Our Own image and likeness"? Who sees the author of intelligence in any but in Him who teacheth all men? From what other hand will any think to receive virtue, but from the God of virtue? God then has good title to be loved for Himself, even on the knowledge of the infidel who is ignorant of Christ; and he that loves not the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and strength is without excuse; for his innate justice and reason cry out from the depth of his soul that he is bound to love Him wholly from whom he holds all things. But it is very difficult, nay, it is impossible by natural strength or the might of free will to refer all to God, instead of keeping back some to our own praise: it is written: "All seek their own;" and elsewhere: "The imagination and thought of man's heart are prone to evil from his youth."

Believers know well the need they have of Jesus crucified; but, whilst they confess and admire His love, they feel no confusion at having so little, nothing but themselves, to return for charity so condescending and so great. Their love is excited by the sense of being so much and so gratuitously loved; for he to whom little love is given, loveth little. Neither Jews nor Pagans feel the pang of love as the Church does, who says: "Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with fruits: because I languish with love." She sees Solomon wearing the diadem with which his mother crowned him. She sees the Only-begotten of the Father staggering under the weight of the cross; the God of all majesty discoloured by blows, covered with spittings; the Author of life and of glory hung upon nails, pierced with a lance and reviled, giving His dear soul for His friends. Gazing on this she feels the sword of love pierce through her heart, and cries out:

"Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with fruits, for I languish with love." The pomegranates which the Bride, led into the garden of her Beloved, delights to gather on the tree of life have the taste of the Bread of Heaven and the colour of the Blood of Christ. She sees the deathblow given to death, and its Author swelling the triumph of his Conqueror. She sees the Victor rising gloriously from hell to earth, from earth to heaven, attended by the host of the redeemed; that at "the name of Jesus every knee may bow of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth." Under the ancient curse, the earth was doomed to bring forth thorns and thistles; but the Spouse calls upon it now, restored by divine benediction, to cover her with flowers; and, remembering those words, "My flesh hath flourished again, and with my will I will praise Him," she renews her strength by the fruit of the tree of the cross, and with the flowers of the Resurrection, whose divine perfume attracts the visits of the Beloved. Then he exclaims: "Behold thou art fair, my Beloved, and comely." She shows her desire for His coming, and upon what her hopes are founded; not on her own perfections, but on the sweetness of the flowers gathered in a field that the Lord hath blessed; for they are dear to the Christ who chose to be born and brought up at Nazareth. The heavenly Bridegroom, drawn by the odour, delights to come into the chamber of the heart, when He finds it decked with fruits and perfumed with flowers. He comes with eagerness, and delights to dwell in souls that He sees are devoted to meditation, carefully set on gathering in the fruit of His Passion, and the glorious flowers of His Resurrection. That precious crop which was ripening through the ages of crime and death, and in these last days is fit to be garnered, is the harvest of the fruits of His Passion; but it is in the splendour of the Resurrection that the flowers bloom of the new Springtide which grace has brought upon the earth. In the end of time, at the general resurrection, the abundance of fruit shall be without measure, "for winter is now past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers have appeared in our land." By these words the Bride would say: The summer is come back, with Him who broke up the ice of the old world to restore universal spring, saying: "Behold I make all things new." His body, sown in death, has blossomed in the resurrection, and after His likeness, our plains and valleys, which were dry and bare, or frozen, are new born to life and heat.

The freshness of these flowers, the perfection of the fruits, and the beauty of this garden exhaling such exquisite perfume, are pleasing also to the Father of Him who has made all things new; and, blessing Him, He says: "Behold the smell of my Son is as the smell of a field full of flowers, which the Lord hath blessed;" full of flowers, indeed, for it is of His fulness that we have all received. But the Bride, when she will, may come familiarly and gather flowers and fruit, to dress with them the chamber of her conscience, that the Bridegroom at His coming may find the little bed of her heart giving out the sweetest odours. And in like manner we, if we desire that Christ should come to us and abide in us, must fill our hearts full of the thoughts of His death and resurrection and of faithful recollection of the mercy and the power of which by them He has given us proof. This David meant by the words: "These two things have I heard: that power belongeth to God, and mercy to Thee, O Lord." And Christ has superabundantly proved it; for, having died to expiate our sins, He rose from the dead for our justification, and sent the Holy Spirit for our consolation. Hereafter He will return to consummate our salvation. In His death we have the proof of His mercy, in His resurrection of His power, and of the two united in the rest.

When the Bride entreats to be sustained with aromatic flowers and strengthened with sweet-smelling fruits, it is that she fears lest her love should chill or languish; but she seeks such stimulants only till received into the chamber of her Beloved. She will then feel Him covering her with the kisses she has longed for, and will exclaim: "His left hand is under my head, and His right doth embrace me." She will then feel how far the embrace of the right hand surpasses all sweetness, and that that of the left cannot be compared to it, with which He had caressed her in the first days of His coming. She will understand that "the flesh profiteth nothing; it is the Spirit that quickeneth." She will enter into the sense of His words: "My spirit is above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb." If it be also written, "My memory is unto everlasting generations," it is to show that the elect who are not yet satisfied by the presence of the Bridegroom have at least His image for their comfort now whilst time runs on. If it be written, "They shall publish the memory of thine inexhaustible sweetness," it clearly refers to those of whom the Psalmist had before spoken: "Generation and generation shall praise Thy works." On earth there is but the memory of the Bridegroom; in heaven, His perpetual Presence. This is the glory of those who have already arrived in port; and that the consolation of those still buffeting with the waves.

It is well to consider who they are that feel comforted by the thought of God. Not those, degraded, who continually vex God, and to whom it is said: "Woe, ye rich, unto you, for you have received your consolation;" but such as can say with truth: " My soul hath refused to be comforted." Well may those who have not yet the joy of the Beloved's presence fix their gaze upon the future; and they who disdain to accept of anything from the stream of passing pleasure, enjoy abundantly, in hope, those joys which shall last for ever. Such are they who seek the face of the Lord, the God of Jacob, and not themselves. The thought of God is sweet to those who sigh after Him, and with every breath recall His presence; but, far from appeasing their hunger for Him, it increases it. This He foretold in the words: "They that eat Me shall yet hunger," and, as if he spake that hungers: " I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear." Yet happy are they even now who hunger and thirst after justice, for only they shall be filled. Woe to you, O perverse, wicked race; woe to you, senseless and besotted people, who do not love the thought of Him, but dread His appearing. Good right ye have to fear, because ye will not now escape from the net of the fowler; for they that will "become rich fall into the snares of the devil." In that day ye shall not fail to fall under the awful, aye and hopeless sentence: " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." But how sweet, how tender is that promise which we hear the Church make every day in remembrance of the Passion: " He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath everlasting life;" which implies, he that honours My death, and after My example mortifies his flesh upon earth, shall have eternal life; or, if you suffer with Me, you shall also reign with Me. Nevertheless, even to this day, many hearing those words turn and go away sorrowful, saying by their deeds, if not with their lips: " This is a hard saying, who can bear it?" They who, in place of keeping their hearts pure and being faithful to God, love better to set their affections upon uncertain treasures, cannot abide the mention of the Cross; the mere thought of the Passion seems intolerable to them. How will such endure the sentence of the Judge: " Go, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels "? These words will crush, like a vast rock, those upon whom they fall. But the Saints shall be blest. Like the Apostle, they have no ambition but to ''please God while absent from Him, and still to please Him when they shall be present." They also shall hear their sentence: " Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you." In that day those who have not kept their hearts aright will, too late, feel how sweet and light is the yoke and burden of Christ, which they proudly refused to bear, through the hardness of their heart, as if it were a vile and crushing weight. It is impossible, poor slaves, to toil for this world's riches, and also to glory in the Cross of our Saviour Jesus Christ; at the same time to desire and labour for earthly things and to taste the sweetness of our Lord. Very fearful you will certainly find Him one day, the thought of whom has never been your joy.

But the believing soul sighs with all her heart after God, and dwells upon the thought of Him; she glories in the disgrace of the Cross, so long as she cannot see her Saviour face to face. She is as the dove of Christ, and she enjoys sleep and rest in the midst of the goods that He has bestowed on her. Her wings are white as silver through the purity and innocence which belong, O Lord Jesus, to the desire of Thine ineffable sweetness; and moreover her hope is that, in the glory reflected from Thy face, her "feathers will shine like gold," and she will overflow with joy and be inundated with light from Thy countenance in the rapture of the Saints. Good reason has she, therefore, to say now with delight: "His left hand is under my head, and His right shall embrace me." His left hand is the memory of that love whose greatness none can ever equal, by which He laid down His life for those whom He loved. His right hand is the beatific vision He has promised to His own, and the content with which He will fill and crown them when they shall enjoy His divine presence. It is written in the Psalms: "At Thy right hand there are delights even to the end." His right hand is therefore justly made the figure of that divine and deifying, that inconceivable felicity which belongs to the vision of God. In like manner the left hand is as the seat of that amazing charity of which I have spoken, of which we can never think too much, for it is upon this hand that the Bride lays her head and rests until this iniquity shall pass away. We may understand her head to mean the intention of her soul, which she leans upon the arm of her Spouse, lest through weakness she might fall away to mere earthly attractions; for the earthly and corruptible burden of the body weighs heavily upon the soul, and drags it down from thoughts to which she cannot fail to rise'if she rests upon the contemplation of mercy, to which she had so little claim, love so lavish and so amply proved, gentleness and sweetness so persevering and so exquisite, such unimagined honour. Is it possible that these should not exalt the mind that meditates upon them, detaching it from all unworthy affection, sinking deeper and deeper into it, and making it scorn all which cannot be relished without renouncing these higher enjoyments? Their sweetness, like rare scents, attracts her; she quickens her step blithely, and her heart is all aflame with love. The sense of being loved so tenderly makes her fancy herself cold, though love be her very life. What return is it for a love that comes down from so high, and is so marvellous, if a poor grain of dust be all consumed with gratitude and love? Was not the Majesty of heaven the first to love? Has it not revealed itself as wholly devoted to the work of saving her? For "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." This is clearly written of God the Father. And again: "He hath delivered His soul to death;" this is said of the Son. And of the Holy Spirit we read: "The Paraclete whom My Father will give you in My name, He will teach you all things, and will bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." Hereby we see that God loves us, and loves us with His whole being; for the Blessed Trinity altogether loves us, if we dare so to speak of the infinite incomprehensible Being who is one and indivisible.

All that has been said proves most clearly the duty of loving God, and His claim upon our love. How is it with the infidel? As he knows not God the Son, so is he also ignorant of the Father and the Holy Spirit; and as he gives no glory to the Son, neither does he glorify the Father who sent Him, nor the Holy Spirit, the gift of both. He knows less of God than we do, therefore it is no wonder he should love Him less. One thing, however, he does know; that to Him who created him, he owes himself entirely. But how will it be with me? for I can plead no ignorance. I know that God made me without any desert of mine, that He satisfies all my wants, comforts me with pity, and governs me with anxious care; and not only so, but I know, besides, that He is my Redeemer, the Author of my eternal salvation, my treasure and my glory. As it is written: "With Him is plentiful redemption;" "By His own blood He entered once into the Holy of Holies, having obtained eternal redemption." He keeps us safe, as it is written: "The Lord knoweth the days of the undefiled, and their inheritance shall be for ever." He enriches us, as He has said: "Good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over, shall they give into your bosom;" and elsewhere: "The eye hath not seen, O God, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee." He fulfils us with glory, as saith the Apostle: "We wait for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our body, now vile and abject, and make it like unto His own, which is full of glory." And again: "The sufferings of this present time are not to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us;" and this present time of this world's affliction (so short, so fugitive) produces to us (if only despising the visible we fix our eyes upon things invisible) "an eternal and incomparable weight of glory."

For all of this, what shall I render to the Lord? Both reason and the law of Nature bind me fast to give myself undividedly to Him from whom I hold all that I have, and to devote my entire being to the love of Him. And faith reveals to me that I am constrained to love Him more than myself, the more I understand how I owe to His munificence not only all I am, but moreover the gift of Himself.

But let us consider that, ere yet the day of Christian faith had come, before God had put on our flesh and died upon a cross, gone down into hell and ascended to the Father, that is, before the fulness of His love for us had shone forth, long before, man had been commanded to love the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his strength, that is, with his whole being, with all the love of which he is capable, as a creature endowed with intelligence and will. Could it be unjust of God to claim for Himself His own work and His gifts? Why should not the work love God who made it, having also received the power to love; and why not love Him with all its powers, if it be only by God that it possesses any? Consider, too, that man has not only been called into being out of nothing, without any anterior claim, but also that he has been so called to be raised to high dignity. We shall thus see more clearly our obligation to love Him wholly, and His right to our love. Moreover, when man had sunk to the level of the beasts that perish, did God not intervene to reinstate and save him? Is not this the marvel of His goodness and His mercy? For by sin we had fallen from the dignity of our creation, to become imbruted like the ox that eateth grass and hath not the light of reason. If I owe my whole self to my Creator, what do I not owe to my Redeemer, and to such a Redeemer! It was a far less work to create, than to redeem; for God had but to speak the word and all things were made; but to repair the fall of that, which one word had created, what wonders had He not to perform, what cruelties, nay, what humiliations, had He not to suffer!

What, therefore, shall I render to the Lord for all that He hath done for me! By creating, He gave me to myself; but He restored me to myself when He gave Himself to me: first given and then restored, I doubly owe myself to Him. But, what do I owe to God for the gift of Himself? If I gave Him my whole being a thousand times over, what would that be in comparison of God?

Confess that God deserves to be greatly loved, or rather that He should be loved beyond measure. He was the first to love; He so great, we so little; He loves us to excess, just as we are, and without any claim whatsoever on our side. This is why the rightful measure of our love to God is to exceed all measure; for God, the object of our love, being infinite, how can we weigh or measure what we owe to Him in love? Moreover, our love is not a free offering; it is the payment of a debt. And, besides, as it is the I Am, eternal and immense, the Divine Love, God, whose greatness has no limits nor His wisdom bounds, who is the "Peace which passeth all understanding;" as, I say, it is such a God who loves us, is it possible for us to say we will love Him so much and no more? "I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength and my defence, my refuge and my salvation," who art to me all that my soul needs, and all that my heart desires. My God and my Help, I will love Thee with all my strength; not according to what Thou deservest, but according to my little capacity. I will love Thee more when Thou hast given me more power of loving; but never, never as Thou shouldst be loved. Thine eyes see my foolishness, my inability; but I know that Thou writest in Thy book those who do what they can, even when they cannot do what they ought. Have I not said enough to prove how God should be loved, and by what gifts He has merited our love? I merely name His gifts, because the excellence of them who can express, who can understand, who can feel?

Let us see what benefit accrues to us from loving God. Though we may see this ever so imperfectly, that is better than to be blind to it. We have spoken (though in a manner unworthy of God, yet to the best of our power) of God's right to our love; we will now speak of the recompense He has attached to our loving Him; for whilst we must love God, independently of all reward, we shall none the less be rewarded for having loved Him. True charity cannot be left without salary, although she is not mercenary and seeketh not her own. Love is a going forth of the soul, not a contract; it is not the result of a convention, and is not to be acquired by agreement; it is spontaneous in its impulses, and likens us to itself; also true love is its own satisfaction. Its recompense lies in the object of its love; for whatever be that which we seem to love, if our real object be something else, it is really that something which we love, and not that by which our heart strives to attain it. St. Paul preached not the gospel for his daily bread, but the bread which kept him alive enabled him to preach the gospel. What he loved was the gospel, not the bread. True love seeks no reward, but it merits one; it is very certain that no one proposes to pay for love, although it not only deserves its recompense, but shall surely have it. In a lower class of things, who are they that are excited by the offer of rewards? Those that are slack and unloving. Does it ever occur to any one to persuade with pay those that are burning to be allowed to serve? One does not give money to a starving man to engage him to eat, no more than to a tender mother to induce her to give suck to her child, to get a vinedresser to protect his vines, or a householder to rebuild his fallen house. Far less does he who loves God need to be urged by the promise of a recompense which is other than God Himself; otherwise it would be the reward he loved, not God.

It is natural to a reasonable being to desire that which appears to him, according to his particular mode of thinking, better than what he possesses; and never to be satisfied if a good thing wants the particular quality which he prefers. If he loves beauty he will desire what seems to him most beautiful. If he plumes himself on the possession of a very precious jewel, he will desire to possess a still more splendid one; and whatever riches he may have, his nature is to want more. Is it not a thing we see every day, the owner of immense property and wealth buying up more land, and never content but in extending his estates? Those who dwell in vast palaces, are they not for ever building new ones, always altering, making round the cornered, and the cornered round? Are not men in high position constantly aspiring to higher, constantly striving to rise, out of an ambition more and more difficult to appease? There is no limit to such restlessness, because, in all such things, it is impossible to reach a point absolutely good and high. But it is not astonishing that so long as a man can see beyond him something greater and more perfect, he should be dissatisfied with his own possession of what is less and worse. What does seem foolish beyond all expression is, always to be longing for things which cannot even lull to sleep our desires, far less satisfy them. What follows? this—that the heart, tempted by many deceitful charms, wearies itself to no purpose, is always craving, and counts for nothing what it has enjoyed, compared to what it fain would have; and is tormented, by desire of what it has not, out of all delight with what it possesses. All one cannot have; for the little it is possible to get, the price of labour must be paid; and it must be enjoyed with trembling; nay, with the miserable certainty that one day it must be lost, though the date of that day be not known.

I have described the conduct of a perverted will blindly seeking the sovereign good. It makes haste in vain, the plaything of its own vanity, deceived by iniquity. Why wear out the day in fruit less struggle this way and that, and be caught by death unsatisfied? In such toils do the profane entangle themselves who seek about, like fools, to obtain their souls' desires. They consume,their life in useless efforts and arrive at no perfect happiness; for they are in love with created things, not with the Creator, and they try them, one and then another, before they dream of trying the Lord that made them all. Yet, if they could have their hearts' desire and achieve the possession of the world, less Him who is its author, they would feel at last, by the same law which has ruled their life, that Him they must have, or never rest. They have gone from one ambition to another, coveting always some better thing; and now, masters of all in heaven and earth, they would soon find all insufficient, and discover that they were forced to seek Him who is wanting still, they must seek God Himself. Once discover that, once attain unto Him, there is peace; it is impossible to go beyond. The soul must cry out: "It is good for me to adhere to my God;" or, "What besides Thee have I in heaven, and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth?" and again: "Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever." Even this way would a soul necessarily end in God if it could try in sequence all lesser things than He. But life is too short, and strength would fail for any such attempt; also the number of competitors is too great. It would be impossible to try all creatures and find them wanting. It were more easy and more advantageous to do the work in imagination than in reality. Our minds have been endowed with more activity and perspicacity than our hearts precisely for this end—that they may go first and prevent the heart from attaching itself to what the mind has not first found desirable. "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." The first should prepare the ground for the second, so that the heart should follow the judgment of the mind. Otherwise there is no hope of "ascending into the mountain of the Lord, and dwelling in His holy place;" and it is in vain that we possess a reasoning mind, if we do as the beasts do, and only obey our senses, the reason not interfering. They who are not guided by reason, run indeed in the race, but they run without chance of winning. How should they win, seeing they care not first for the prize, but put that last of all? How should they do other than entangle themselves in a maze without beginning or end? Not so with the just. Warned by the blame addressed to those who thus err (for the way is wide and well trodden that leads to death), they choose the royal road which turns to neither right nor left, for "the path of the just is straight." They take the shortest road, guided by a word as simple as simplifying, commanding them not to heed what their eyes may see, but to sell all and give to the poor; for blessed indeed are such poor, and the kingdom of heaven is theirs. The Lord knoweth the way of the just, and commendeth it. He knoweth also the way of the sinner, in which he cannot but perish. The just are happy in their poverty, and the rich unsatisfied in their abundance; for the wise man saith: "He that loveth riches shall reap no fruit from them." But they who "hunger and thirst after justice shall be filled." Justice is their needful food. As to the things of this world, the soul is no more nourished by them than the body is by air. If we were to see a starving man inhaling with wide open mouth, drinking long draughts of wind to quench his thirst, we should say, Poor fool! So is it with those who seek to satisfy the soul with worldly goods, which do but puff it out as with wind, and no more feed it than things spiritual feed our bodies. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, who satisfieth thy desire with good things." He filleth thee out of His fulness; at once giving thee thy desire, and exciting thee to wish for more. He prevents, He sustains, He fills thee; He kindles desire in thy heart, and He Himself is the Object of all desire.

I have said that the motive of our love to God is God Himself, and it is well said, for He is both the efficient cause and the final end of our love. He is such that it is impossible to know and not to love Him; not also to hope in Him; for, if we did not hope to love Him perfectly hereafter, our present love for Him would be nothing. Our love is prepared and recompensed by His. He first loves us out of His exceeding goodness; then He claims the due return of love, and permits us in the future the most glorious hopes. He is generous to those who call upon Him, but He can give nothing better than Himself. He Himself is the end of our merits, and our reward. He is the food of holy souls, the ransom of those that are yet in captivity. If the Lord be good to the soul that seeketh Him, what is He to that soul which hath found Him? But this may seem strange, that no one can seek the Lord who hath not already found Him; for His will is to be found that He may be yet more sought; and sought, that He may be more entirely found. But, though He may be sought and found, He can never be forestalled. He is always first; and if we say: "In the morning my prayer shall prevent Thee," it is nevertheless quite certain that that prayer would be very chilly if, O God, thine inspiration did not precede it.

We have spoken of the consummation of the love of God, let us now see what are its beginnings.

Love is one of the four natural affections that all the world knows, and which need not be enumerated. Now, it is but natural and right first of all to love the Author of nature; and the first commandment, which is the greatest, is: " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." But nature is too soft and weak for such a precept; she must begin by loving herself; this is the love which is called carnal, with which man loves himself first and above all; as it is written: " That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural." We love first by nature, not by precept—" No man ever hated his own flesh." But if this love should increase too much; if like a river between banks it overflow and flood the lands about, it then becomes voluptuousness, and this dyke is opposed to it: «Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Justly may he that shares our nature share our love. Wherefore, if any one cannot so love his brethren as to think of their wants, or let us even say of their pleasures, let him deny himself in those very things, in order that he may learn. Let a man think of himself as much as ever he will, if only he take care to think equally of his neighbour. Such, O man, is the curb and just limit imposed upon thee by the law of thy being and by thy conscience, that thou be not carried away by thy selfishness to thy destruction, leaving thy nature at the mercy of the enemies of thy soul; that is, of thy passions. It is far better that thou go shares with thy neighbours than with thy enemies; and if, as the wise man advises, man renounces his passions, contents himself with food and raiment, and is willing to moderate his love for those things of the flesh which war against the spirit, he will, I think, find small difficulty in giving to his neighbour what he refuses to the enemy of his soul. His love will be contained within the bounds of justice and moderation, from the moment that he consecrates to his brethren that which he refuses to himself. Selfishness becomes benevolence by taking a wider range.

But if through imparting to our neighbour we bring ourselves to want? What is our remedy? Prayer. We have only to pray with confidence to Him who giveth all things liberally and upbraideth not; who "openeth His hand and filleth with blessing every living creature;" for we cannot doubt that He who giveth to most men more than they need, will willingly give to him who prays for what is indispensable; for it is written: "Seek first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you." God hereby binds Himself to provide what is essential for him that denies himself and loves his neighbour; for to put on the yoke of purity and sobriety rather than be the slave of our passions, this is to seek first the kingdom of God and to implore His help against the tyranny of sin; and it is justice to share our natural blessings with those that share our nature. But in order that love for our neighbour be entirely right, God must have His part in it; it is not possible to love our neighbour as we ought to do, except in God. Now he that loves not God can love nothing in Him. We must therefore begin by loving God, and so love our neighbour in Him. God is the author, as of all other things, so of our love for Him—and more—as He created nature, so He sustains it; for she could neither exist nor subsist without Him. That we might thoroughly know this, and not attribute anything to ourselves, God, in the depths of His wisdom and love, made us subject to tribulation. Being feeble and needy, we are forced to turn to God, and being saved by Him we render glory to His name. These are His own words: "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." In this way man, by nature animal and carnal, with no love but for himself, is brought through self-love to love God, realising that all his ability, at any rate for good, he has from God, and without Him is able to do nothing.

First, then, man has some love for God for his own sake, not for God's. It is already something to feel the limits of his own capacity, to know what he cannot do without the help of God, and to keep right with Him who sustains his life and strength. But, let a train of disasters befall and oblige him perpetually to have recourse to God, if he still get the aid he wants, his heart must be of brass or marble not at last to be touched by the goodness of his helper, not to begin at length to love Him for Himself. Let the frequency of trials bring us often to the feet of God, surely it is impossible, but we must begin to know Him, and, knowing Him, must come to discern His sweetness. It soon follows that we are brought to love Him rightly, far more for the sweetness and beauty that we find in Him than for our own self-interest. In the words of the Samaritans to the woman: "We now believe, not for thy saying; for we ourselves have heard Him, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world." In like manner, we come to say to our natural self: It is not because of thee that we love the Lord, but we have tasted ourselves, and found how sweet He is. The necessities of this life are a kind of language proclaiming in transports of joy and thanksgiving the blessings of which they have taught us the value. When this has once been learnt, it is easy enough to obey the precept and love our neighbour as ourself; for, if we love God truly, we love all that is His, and it is henceforth easy to submit to the precept: "Purify your hearts in the obedience of charity, with a brotherly love." We are bound to fulfil willingly so just a command, a command, moreover, so full of profit because it is disinterested. It is a love most pure, for it is shown simply in holy deeds and truth; most just, for it returns that which it receives. Whoso loves with this love, loves as he is loved, and seeks no more his own, but the things of Jesus Christ, even as Jesus Christ has sought us. Herein we see such love as that which said, "Give praise to the Lord, for He is good." He that loves God because He is good, not to him, but in Himself, loves God indeed for God, and not as he does of whom the Scripture saith: "He will praise Thee when Thou shalt do well to him."

Happy is he who can rise to the fourth degree of love, and loves himself only for God's sake. "Thy justice, O Lord, is as the high mountains." It is even so of this fourth degree of love, "a great mountain in which God is well pleased to dwell." "Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord?" "Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly thither and be at rest?" "His place is in peace, and his abode in Zion." "Woe is me that my sojourning is prolonged." When shall this flesh and blood, this dust and mire of which I am made, be able to go up there? When shall this soul of mine, entranced with love for God, look on herself as broken sherds, yearn after God, and lose herself in Him, for "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit"? When shall she cry out: "My flesh and my heart have fainted away; Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever"? Holy and happy is he who but once, for but one moment, has felt something like this in his mortal life; for this is no human happiness, it is life eternal so to lose oneself, as if one were empty of self, as if one were not. If some poor mortal attains to this, for one moment and as it were unawares, this evil time seems begrudgingly to delay and embitter his joy. This body of death drags him down, the cares and anxieties of life pull him back, the corruption of the flesh refuses its support, and his duty to his neighbour calls on him loudly to come down, and cry out: "Lord, I suffer violence, answer Thou for me;" or thus: "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

We read in Holy Scripture that God hath made all things for Himself. His creatures are therefore bound to conform themselves, at least in some measure, to the mind of their Maker. We ought to offer ourselves entirely to Him, studying only His good pleasure, not our own. We shall find happiness, much less in seeking our own advantage, than in the accomplishment of His will in us, according as we daily pray: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." O pure and holy love! most sweet and blessed affection! O complete submission of a disinterested soul; most perfect in that there is no thought of self; most sweet and tender in that the'soul's whole feeling is divine!

To attain to this, is for the soul to be deified; as a small drop of water appears lost if mixed with wine, taking its taste and colour; and as, when plunged into a furnace, a bar of iron seems to lose its nature and assume that of fire; or as the air filled with the sun's beams seems rather to become light than to be illuminated. So it is with the natural life of the Saints; they seem to melt and pass away into the will of God. For if anything merely human remained in man, how then should God be all in all? It is not that human nature will be destroyed, but that it will attain another beauty, a higher power and glory. When shall that be? To whom shall it be given to see and know it? When shall I come and appear before the face of God? O God, my Lord, my heart hath said to Thee: "My face hath sought Thee; Thy face, O Lord, will I seek." Will it be given.to such as I to see Thy holy temple?

In this life, the heart is obliged to take some thought of the body, the mind to see that its health and powers are kept unimpaired; and I think that it is impossible, so long as our energies are thus divided, to rest wholly in God and in the contemplation of Him, impossible perfectly to obey the precept, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength." We may not hope to possess the fourth degree of love, or rather to be possessed by it, until we have put on a body spiritual and immortal, pure and calm, obedient and subject in all to the spirit, which cannot be our doing, but only the work of the power of God in favour of such as please Him. Our soul will easily attain to this perfect love when neither the burden nor the temptations of this body oppress her; then she will spring untrammelled to her joy in the Lord. But are we to doubt that the souls of the holy martyrs before quitting their triumphant bodies tasted, at least in some small measure, of this happiness? This we know for certain, that immense love filled and enraptured their souls, to give them strength to lay down their lives and to endure the torments which they suffered. Still the joy of their triumph must have been thereby abated.

What may we then believe of souls already freed from the burden of the flesh? I believe them to be altogether immersed in the fathomless depths of eternal light, and of a luminous eternity. But if, as we may not deny, they still desire and hope to rejoin the bodies they formerly inhabited, it is clear that they are not altogether changed, but that still their bodies claim some part in them, although it may be very small. And, until death be wholly swallowed up in victory, until the glory of eternity shall have pervaded every corner of the domain of night, and the clarity of celestial light shine even in our bodies, until then our souls can never cast themselves into God, and wholly give themselves to Him. Until then the chains of the body still impede them, be it only by a natural affection which they have neither the will nor the power to forsake; and, till the restitution of our bodies, our souls can never be swallowed up in God, which is their absolute perfection. If the union with Him could be consummated by the soul alone, she would no more desire the body; but when the soul leaves the body, it is gain, and greater gain when it rejoins it. Finally, "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." If death can be so praised, how shall it be with life? that life! The soul may well think to obtain increase of glory from its body, because, though infirm and mortal, it has contributed greatly to its merits. To "them that love God all things work together unto good;" and the soul which loves God profits by its poor, weak body, whether living, dead, or risen—living, by bringing forth with her fruits of penance; dead, by resting from its labour; risen, the two together attain the consummation of all joy. It is clear then that without the body the soul is not perfected; as in every state it is essential to her good.

The body then is for the soul a faithful companion; if it be a burden, it is also a help; when it ceases to aid, it also ceases to hinder; when again it helps, it is no more a burden. The first state is laborious, but profitable; the second inactive, but in no sense tedious; and the third is glorious. Hear how the Bridegroom in the Canticles invites the soul to these three conditions: " Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved." The souls whom He invites to eat are those still toiling in their bodies; those that are at rest in death, He presses to drink; those who are once more clothed upon to be inebriated; and, calling these His dearly beloved, He implies that they are filled with charity: for to the first He saith only "friends;" for they who still toil under the weight of the body are dear to Him according to the love they bear. Those who are delivered from the burden of the flesh are dearer yet, because of the freedom and fulness their love has acquired. But, compared with all these, most dearly beloved are they who, clothed again in the robe of the glorious body, are transported with the love of God in joyful liberty from everything which might draw them down or hinder their upward flight. Not till thus perfected are they so delivered, for in the first case the body wearies the spirit and keeps it back; in the second, the body is an object of hope and of personal desire, which has in it the taint of self. The faithful soul begins by eating bread, but, alas, "in the sweat of her face;" for so long as she is in the body she does but walk by faith, which should work by love, for faith without works is dead. Now these are the works which are her bread, according to the word of the Lord: " My bread is to do the will of my Father.'' When she has put off the body of death she ceases to eat the bread of sorrow, and, as at the close of a meal, she drinks long draughts of the wine of love; but this wine is not yet unmixed, for, as saith the Bridegroom in the Canticles, " I have drunk my wine with my milk," for with the wine of God's love the soul mixes milk; namely the desire of re-union with her body which she loves with the softness of natural affection. Already she feels the strength of the divine love which she drinks, but it does not yet transport her; the mingling of milk still tempers it. Inebriation troubles the spirit so that it forgets itself; but that is not the state of the soul still yearning for its body, which is yet to rise. She does not wholly lose the sense of self. But when she has regained this only thing that lacks, what hinders that she should altogether cast herself into God, losing even her own likeness, in being made like unto Him? No obstacle remaining, she can lift to her lips the cup of wisdom of which it is written: " My chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly is it; " and who can wonder that she is transported with the abundance that fills the house of God; free from all care, she drinks, in the Kingdom of the Father, long, tranquil draughts of the wine of the Son, pure and new.

It is wisdom that gives this threefold banquet, where all the food is charity. She gives bread to those who have still to labour, wine for those to drink who already enjoy rest; and inebriates those who are gone into the kingdom of heaven. When her guests have eaten, she serves to them wine. So long as we toil in this life, bearing on us a mortal body, we must eat of the bread our labour has found us, we must eat laboriously and swallow it; but, scarce have we breathed our last sigh, when we begin to drink in our spiritual life, receiving the cup, and drinking in happy restfulness. When all is accomplished, and the body is risen to life and restored to the soul, they drink to inebriation of the chalice that never fails. This is the meaning of those words: "Eat, O my friends, and drink; and be inebriated, my dearly beloved." In this life, eat; after death you shall drink; in the kingdom of the resurrection you shall be inebriated; you whom I well may call my dearly beloved. Are they not truly so who are admitted to the marriage feast of the Lamb, who sit at His table, eating and drinking in His kingdom, when "He presents to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing"? It is then He will inebriate His dearly beloved, pouring out to them a "torrent of delights;" for when the Bridegroom shall clasp the Bride in His loving and chaste embrace, a torrent of delight shall rejoice the City of God, which I hold to mean no other than the Son of God, who, "passing, will minister unto them that sit at meat." So He hath promised that the just may feast, and rejoice before God, and be delighted with gladness. From thence comes satiety which is never satisfied; ardour which is insatiable, yet most calm and peaceful; the eternal and incomparable desire to possess, which arises from no want; that inebriation without excess, which comes from the enjoyment, not of wine, but of God and His Truth. The soul hath reached for ever the fourth degree of love, when she loves only God, and loves Him supremely; when she loves for no gain, for Himself alone; so that He is her reward, the eternal recompense of those who love Him, and shall love Him for ever.