June 12
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeWednesday of the Third Week after Easter
Cease to do evil; learn to do well. Isaiah 1:16, 17.
LET us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us; this is the first step. S. Paul speaks of us as in a race, a race for life eternal, of which our Lord, Who gives us strength to run, the Author of our faith, will be Himself the Finisher, complete it in time, reward it in eternity. Two things hinder men in a race, a weight to carry, or whatever entangles their feet. What is the weight in our way to heaven? The mass of worldly thoughts, cares, longings; the confused heap of sins, of which we confess "the burden of them is intolerable." What is the one sin which doth so easily beset us? We have each one special weakness which besets us, is ever twining itself around us, and from which, until we disentangle ourselves, we make but little progress. It comes to us sometimes in the very same shape, sometimes in another; sometimes in acts so slight that we heed them not, sometimes in temptations so vehement that they carry us off our feet. It comes to us mostly in a few ways, but these so in and out as it were, sometimes in the one, sometimes in the other, that till men examine it slowly, and take it away piece by piece, it seems much stronger than it is. So you have felt when briers have entangled you and hindered your walking. The more you stumbled on impatiently the more hold they seemed to have of you. If you took them off quietly, you were surprised how slight a thing it was which was hindering you; then
Despair not in the vale of woe, Where many joys from suffering flow.