Serious Hours of a Young Lady by Charles Sainte-Foi (inspirational books to read TXT) 📕

heart. None other than His light should shine in this holy and chaste obscurity, and this is why humility, of which we have found so perfect a model in Mary, should be the necessary shield and guarantee of a young lady's innocence. She ought not to have the slightest misgivings relative to the value of the treasure she possesses or the loss she would sustain in losing it.

The presence of an angel sufficed to trouble Mary. Oh, young ladies should meditate well and frequently on the conduct that Mary observed in this interview, and imitate her example! She did not answer the Angel's words, but she observed an humble and modest silence. Not so with Eve who, without reflection, answered the devil's question, and by this first reply began a conversation the issue of which has proved so disastrous to the whole human race. Learn from this two-fold example, and from the effects so different which have resulted from both, how much you should fear Eve's curiosity in yourself, and with what care and assiduity you should labor to imitate the reserve and silence of Mary.

Curiosity is a most dangerous rock for a young lady, - this is the rock upon which a countless number of your sex and age have been wrecked. The moment that you pander to the desire of knowing everything, you immediately enter on a most dangerous way, the issue of which is at least precarious. It was for having satisfied this desire that Eve opened the door to all the calamities that afflict and will afflict mankind till the end of time. And, since then, it has caused the ruin of a countless number of women.

Intrench, so to speak, your mind in the citadel of your own heart. Let it repose in the holy obscurity of an humble and docile faith, and you will learn more useful things in this way than you could ever learn even from the best books and the most eloquent instructions. Faith and prayer should be the daily food of your soul. Faith, with its imperfect yet celestial light, will meet all the legitimate wants of your mind; and prayer, with its divine unction, will embalm your soul.

Often turn your eyes toward heaven, and earth will soon lose all its attractions. Converse frequently with God and you will find it easier to dispense with the intercourse of men; keep your mind at a remote distance from all worldly knowledge, and the innocence of your heart will enjoy sweet repose. Seek not to anticipate by an indiscreet precipitancy the time when the realities of life shall open out to your view. Perhaps, more than once you will regret the happiness which you now enjoy, and which is due both to your knowledge and ignorance of things.

In reality, you possess by faith the same knowledge that the blessed have in heaven, that knowledge which has been the object of the study, research and love of the most renowned minds and of the most perfect souls in this world. Faith, elevating you above yourself and all earthly things, leads you to regions to which the most distinguished genius, joined to the most profound and persevering study, can never approach. Faith makes you in a certain way the sister of angels and of men, - of men who have been the most remarkable on earth for their excellent qualities of head and heart. Faith associates you with the glorious choirs of heaven, and, when truly lively and active, will bring you unalloyed felicity and ineffable joy.

Why should you envy those women, who, for being older than you, have gained by experience a knowledge of things that you should still ignore? Why seek to compare their knowledge with that which you possess? The knowledge that you have obtained by faith has cost your mind no effort - not a single regret to your heart, no remorse to your conscience. Every step that you make in this illuminated way recalls to your mind a sweet and precious souvenir, the pure reflections of which will be the only light that will dispel the gloom of the trials and anguish of life. It shall be very different with regard to what you must learn in time to come. Experience is a severe teacher, whose lessons are dearly bought; this is clearly and forcibly expressed by the Holy Ghost saying: "He that adds something to the knowledge already acquired, adds at the same time new pains to those he already suffers."

So far you have learned the one thing necessary to man, and which meets all his wants: you have learned how to please God, to love and serve Him by the observance of His commandments, and fidelity to his inspirations, acknowledging and honoring His authority and power over you in your parents, who are, in your regard, His representatives. So that at present duty possessing pleasing attractions offers none of those difficulties which, at a later period of life, will render it oftentimes painful. Your virtues, protected by that reserve which the world itself has imposed upon youth, guarded by the vigilance of a tender and careful mother, aided by her examples, encouraged by her exhortations and love, tranquilly grow up in the modest sanctuary of the family, without the remotest idea of the trials they must one day meet with.

To learn what pertains to faith and salvation, good will suffices. We are always sure to succeed in pleasing God when we are sincerely desirous to serve Him; in this regard we can never anticipate Him. Not so with the science which teaches how to please men and secure their good will or favor, to enter into their views, conform to their laws and customs. No matter how great our desire may be to succeed, we are never sure of success, and very often the efforts made to secure it remove us farther from the desired end. Consequently, very often the surest means of securing the esteem of the world is to despise it, and withdraw from its tyranny. If you fail to disengage yourself from it, and if you wish to servilely adhere to its maxims, you will often experience that they are severe and hard; and you will reproach yourself more than once for having desired in your youth to taste of those fruits, externally so beautiful but internally so bitter.

Hence, moderation of the mind's curiosity is necessary, and in order to satisfy its activity apply it to those things that can be of interest to your conscience and salvation, to the knowledge and study of those sublime truths which, while enlightening your intelligence, will elevate your heart and strengthen your will. The knowledge that you will acquire in this way will serve you for the rest of your life, much more than all the profane and useless books that you can read. Accustom your mind to the love and search of serious things; this will prove to be of invaluable utility to you.

There is little consistency in frivolous things, and those, who have fed their souls upon them during youth, find themselves void and abandoned when they arrive at the age when woman can please only by interesting the mind and heart by solid charms and tried virtue. This is the age which you should constantly keep before your mind, because it is the one that lasts the longest, and which disposes us proximately for that awful moment in which our fate will be decided forever. Endeavor to become at an early age what you should be during the greater part of your life, and what you would desire to have been at the hour of death.


CHAPTER VII.


THE WORLD.

The world is like some objects which, when seen from afar, deceive the eyes and allure the imagination; but on approaching or touching them their charms vanish. It is like those carcasses that retain the form of a human body as long as they are buried in the obscurity of the tomb, but which, on being exposed to the air, are immediately reduced to dust. Those who are separated from it without having ever known it are exposed to be deceived by its perfidious allurements; and those who, in order to know it, with a view of despising it, desire to mingle in its feasts and pleasures, run a greater danger of falling a victim to the seductions and corruption of its charms. - How, then, shall you secure the advantage and escape the danger?

By shunning the world, you secure your heart and conscience against its seductions; but this evasion, leaving you to consider it from a remote standpoint exposes your mind to prejudices favorable to it, and which, later, might become for you the source of many errors and of many faults. How shall you surmount this twofold difficulty? On the one hand you cannot mingle with the world without danger, and on the other hand it will not do for you to ignore its dangers which must be known in order to be avoided. This dilemma would be of no consequence to a frivolous and unreflecting soul, or to a vain and presumptuous mind, which, confiding in its own powers, believes that it has a good knowledge only of what it sees and experiences; and counts for naught the teachings of faith and the experience of those who have gone before.

Let not this be your case, but, listening with an humble and docile heart to the teachings of faith, reason and experience, learn to know the world and its dangers while your age and condition still shield you from its seductions. Of all the means by which divine Providence enlightens our minds here below, divine faith, as you are aware, is the purest, the brightest and the most reliable, - not only because it comes from God, but because it is presented to us by an authority which He has established, and which, by His special assistance, He preserves from all error.

Sacred Scripture, interpreted and explained to you by this authority is, therefore, the great source to which you must have recourse for the knowledge of the things you should know. Now you will find that there is hardly a single page of those sacred writings in which there is not a malediction pronounced against the world, and a warning for you to avoid its siren charms. You will find in the gospel according to St. John its true character described by Jesus Christ Himself, who, being the Incarnate Wisdom, could not have any other than the most perfect idea of things according to their just value.

In the first place, it is certain, according to this Apostle, that when the Eternal Word came into the world it knew Him not; when Jesus wished to make the Jews feel the confusion of their own blindness, and see the reason of their opposition to His doctrine, He said: You are from beneath, I am from above, you are of this world, I am not of this world, therefore, I say to you that you shall die in your sins. (John viii. 23, 24.) Could there be anything more explicit in condemnation of the world? It has its origin and the throne of its power in the lower regions of the earth, while the kingdom of God resides in the sublime abode of the human heart.

When He promised His disciples that He would send them the Spirit of Truth, to console them, He gave as the distinctive mark by which they would know the Holy Spirit, that the world could not receive Him because it has no knowledge of Him. Hence the opposition that exists between the world and the spirit of the New Law is so great that