Holy Scripture (Gen. xxviii. 12) tells us that Jacob saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, on the top of which Almighty God leaned, and that it was full of angels ascending and descending perpetually without ever resting. Now, according to St. Bernard, this is to show us, that in the way of virtue, there is no medium between ascending and descending, between advancing and going back. But as when we work at the lathe, the wheel flies back when we wish to stop it, even so, the very moment you cease to advance in virtue, you must of necessity go back. Abbot Theodore explains the same thought in these terms related by Cassian (Cas. Collat. vi.): We must, says he, apply ourselves without remissness to the study of virtue, and strenuously exert ourselves in the practice thereof, lest ceasing to grow better, we should instantly begin to grow less perfect; for, as was already said, our souls cannot remain long in the same state, so as not to increase or decrease in virtue; but not to gain is to lose, and whoever feels not in himself a desire of making progress is in danger of falling instantly.
The same Cassian explains this by a very just comparison, which St. Gregory (Greg. iii. 2. past. adm. 51.) likewise makes use of. Those who lead a spiritual life, says he, are like, a man in the midst of a rapid river; if he stops but for a moment, and strives not continually to bear up against the stream, he will run great risk of being carried down. Now the course we ought to take is so directly opposite to the current of our nature corrupted by sin, that unless we labour and force ourselves to go on, we shall certainly be hurried back by the impetuous torrent of our passions.
" The kingdom of heaven is to be taken by storm, and it is only the violent that carry it." (Matt. xi. 12.) And, as when you go against the tide, you must always row without ceasing, and when you stop but for a while, you find yourself drifted far from the spot you had rowed to; so here you must still push forward, and make head against the current of your depraved passions, unless you be content to see yourself quickly carried far back from that degree of perfection which you had before attained. St. Jerom and St. Chrysostom elucidate this truth still more by quoting a point of doctrine universally approved of, and which is stated by St. Thomas (St. Th. ii. 2. 9. 84. ar. 5. ad. 2.) in the following words: A religious life, says he, is a state of perfection: not that a man becomes perfect as soon as he becomes a religious, but because religious have a more strict
