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sponded to by the wishes of the creature. With scarcely an exception, there is something left of that life of nature which produces divergence and conflict. Every one has his choice. To be a merchant, a prince, a commander of armies, a man of pleasure, a man of science, a mechanic, a farmer, a soldier, a teacher of youth, such are some of the preferences they evince. The object at which they aim is not always, and perhaps not generally, wrong. The fault consists in unwillingness to harmonize with the decisions of a higher power. All wish to decide for themselves; all estimate the good or the evil on the small scale of their own personality and interests; all have their choice. Who among them, in the mournful degeneracy of our fallen race, wishes to follow, or thinks beforehand of following, the choice of Providence?

The world is a map of situations, inscribed with lines of demarcation, diversified everywhere with discriminative colors, which indicate opportunity, adaptation, want, fulfilment, duty. In one place the poor are to be aided; in another place the ignorant are to be instructed; in another the sick are to be consoled and watched over. In one place is the demarcation of endurance; in another is the arena of action; in another is the platform of authority and eloquence. But who, in beholding any one of these various demarcations and the duties it suggests, goes to God and asks: Am I the man whom eternal wisdom has selected for this mission? Resigning my own will, I lay myself upon the altar of sacrifice, not to be what I might choose to be, but to be what God may choose to have me to be. Send me, if thou wilt;thought of going, without

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but let me not go, or have a thine own authority.

5. There are exceptions, it is true, but not enough to

reverse, or to modify essentially the assertion, that man is at war with Providence. "All seek their own," says the apostle, "not the things which are Jesus Christ's." In this state of things it is obviously impossible that there should be peace or happiness. The divine harmony is broken. Man, in being by his selfishness antagonistical to God and God's arrangements, is necessarily antagonistical to his neighbor. Place is at war with place, and feeling with feeling. Judgment is arrayed against judgment, because false and conflicting judgments necessarily grow out of the soil of perverted. affections. On every side are the outcries of passion, the competitions of interest, and the crush of broken hearts. 6. Shall it always be so? The remedy, and the only remedy, is an adherence to the law of Providence. Renounce man's wisdom, and seek that of God. Subject the human to the divine. Harmonize the imperfect thoughts and purposes of the creature with the wisdom of the Eternal Will. Let the clamors of nature cease, that the still small voice of the Godhead may speak in the soul. Go where God may lead thee.

When this shall be the general disposition, when all shall cease to seek their own, and shall begin to seek the things which are Christ's, when man's life shall be again engrafted on the Universal Life, then will the Law of Providence universally take effect, and God will reign among men.

CHAPTER X.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF INTERIOR OR SPIRITUAL SOLITUDE.

"Therefore, behold I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, [that is, into the solitary place,] and speak comfortably unto her." Hosea 2: 14.

To be alone with God, which implies being in solitude from the world, is indescribably pleasing to the devout mind. And in order to realize an idea, which carries with it so much attraction, it is not surprising, that many pious persons have, in all ages of the world, secluded themselves from society. In plucking the roses of the world, they have been pierced with the thorn; and in the depth of their sorrow they have sought to avoid that, which, under the appearance of good, conceals so much evil. Their designs have been right, but their methods have not always been successful.

We have briefly alluded to this subject in the concluding remarks of the chapter which considers Providence in connection with man's situation in life. We propose to make a few further remarks upon it here.

2. In order to have correct ideas on the subject before us, we may properly remark, in the first place, that interior or spiritual solitude is not to be confounded with physical or personal solitude. It is something more, and something higher, than mere seclusion of the body in some hidden or remote place.

In the accounts of those, who, in the early periods of Christianity, retired into solitary places, with the object

of perfecting their inward state in desolate caverns, in forests, and in the seclusions of monasteries, we find frequent mention of unexpected and heavy temptations. Often did the world, in the shape of evil desires and vain imaginations, follow them to their lonely retreats. It is related of St. Jerome, whose devout writings still edify the church, that, in the ardor of his young piety, he thought he could successfully escape the temptations of luxurious cities, and perfect his inward experience, by dwelling alone in the solitary deserts of Syria. In the midst of those vast plains, scorched by the burning sun, he sat down alone, emaciated, disfigured, with no companion but wild beasts. Strong were his resolutions; great were his sufferings; many were the penitential tears which he shed; but, in the midst of this desolation and of these flowing tears, he informs us that his busy imagination placed before him the luxuries of Rome and the attractions of her thoughtless voluptuaries, and renewed the mental tortures which he hoped he had escaped.*

To be secluded, therefore, in body is not enough. To be alone in caves and in forests is not necessarily to be alone with God.

3. Nor is this all. We may properly remark, further, that true spiritual solitude, which always implies the special operations of divine grace, is not merely mental solitude. It is not the solitude, even when added to that of the body, of a merely disappointed and impenitent mind; of the mind as it now is.

The mind may become so intensely selfish that even. the world cannot supply its wants. How many persons, the victims of intense avarice, of burning sensuality, of overleaping ambition, have renounced and cursed the

See Pantheon Litteraire. Euvres de St. Jerome.

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world, because even the world, with all its adaptedness to their desires, could not give all that they asked! Men of wealth, voluptuaries, statesmen, warriors, kings, worn out with indulgence, or disappointed in their boundless aspirations, have separated themselves from society, when probably it did not occur to them to separate from themselves. In forests and in dens of the earth, and wherever they could flee away, and shut themselves up alone, they have poured forth, not their prayers to God, but their misanthropy and hate against man. In leaving the world behind them, they have carried in their hearts that which gave the world its evil and its sin.

4. True spiritual solitude, in being something more than solitude of the body, and something more than solitude of the unholy mind, is solitude from that in the mind, whatever it may be, which tends to disunite and dissociate it from God.

The soul, in the state of interior solitude, is in a state of solitude or separation from two things, in particular, namely, from its own desires and its own thoughts. Ir IS SEPARATE FROM ITS OWN DESIRES. Sick of the world, if thou wouldst erect an inward oratory, and enter into the secret place of the heart, then let it be thy first purpose, as it certainly is an indispensable one, to cease from all desire, except such as God himself animates. In order to control the desires, and bring them into subjection to God, it is necessary to control the senses. The desires must have their appropriate objects; and in a multitude of cases the objects are made known by the senses. Keep a close watch, therefore, upon the senses. Let not your eye rest upon anything which is forbidden. Let not your ear listen to any corrupting or unprofitable conversation; but be as one who has no sight, and no hearing, and no touch, and no taste for anything, except

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