May 20

Monday in Easter Week

Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. COLOS-SIANS iii. 3.

SINCE our life is hid, and we understand only so much as we, by acting, know, we must beware how we prejudice anything not to be useful to us, which comes to us in the form of untried self-discipline or self-denial, for it is by trial only that we know it. It is one of the most frequent hindrances to "a more excellent way;" for instead of trying it, men ask, Of what good is it to fast, to watch, to forego pleasures, to deny self? and thereby they show, that not having fasted or used self-denial, they know not what they are. Faith is the realizing before hand things unseen; so it is the characteristic of a noble faith to act on dim intimations of some holier, stricter life to which God would lead it, following the leadings of God's blessed Angel out of the prison-house of our mortality although not knowing whither it is being led. S. Augustine, in his unconverted state, was amazed at the self-denying life of S. Ambrose. He admired what S. Ambrose most dreaded, that "personages so great held him in such honour;" thought hardest what was his self-discipline, what struggles he had against the temptations which beset his very excellences, or what comfort in adversities, and what sweet joys Christ's Bread had for the hidden mouth of the soul. Knowledge is the reward of obedience. Would we know the value of anything we must try it.

So is it still: to holy tears, In lonely hours, Christ risen appears; In social hours, who Christ would see, Must turn all tasks to charity.