conforming our will to God, we must recommend a conformity which leaves us no will but that of the Almighty, which resigns our will entirely to his, and which establishes all its content and joy in the accomplishment of the divine will. In fine, with respect to all the virtues, we must convey of them the noblest idea, and elevate them to the highest point possible. But why, it will be said, recommend the highest degree of virtue to weak persons who are as yet but novices in spiritual matters? If you propose to them things proportionate to their strength, and such as are easily reduced to practice, and within their reach, they will very probably embrace them; but this sublime perfection, you propose, ravishes men to the third heaven, and is proper only for a St. Paul, and for some other few saints whom God has particularly chosen in order to raise them to the highest degree of glory and perfection. But you are exceedingly mistaken in this point; for an exhortation of this nature is better adapted to you than to them, and ought to be addressed to you for the very reason you allege against it: you say you are weak, and that I ought not propose to you such high things as you are not yet able to attain. I answer, because you are weak, I must propose to you the most perfect kind of virtue and devotion, that by your aiming at what is best, you may be able to perform at least what is of strict obligation. For this purpose, it would be much to your advantage to read the lives of saints, and to observe the most distinguished virtues wherein they excelled; for, without doubt, the intention of holy Church in proposing to us their heroic actions is to invite us by their example to rouse ourselves, and at least to shake off the sloth and stupid lethargy which have seized us, if we have not sufficient courage and resolution to imitate them in their austere and holy life. There is also another advantage derived from reading the lives of saints, which is, that considering their great purity, and how far we come short of it, we may feel confusion, and have just reason for humbling ourselves. This is the opinion of the great St. Gregory, who, explaining those words of Job, " He will look upon other men, and then will say, I have sinned" (Job, xxxiii. 27), says, that as a poor man is much more sensible of his own poverty, when he considers the immense treasures of rich men; so the soul humbles herself more lowly, acknowledges her own indigence with more reason, when she reflects upon the great examples set us by the saints, and the glorious actions they have performed. St. Jerom reports that St. Anthony went to visit St. Paul the first hermit, and admiring the holiness of his life, at his return, being asked by his disciples where he had
