Page:SermonOnTheMount1900.djvu/77



N all that concerns chastity we must fear even so much as a look, for by this it is that the poison enters. 'Take care,’ Moses said, 'not to let your eyes and your thoughts go astray after divers things.’ Job also, with the same object, said, 'I made a covenant with my eyes ’; i.e., that he would always keep them restrained, not wandering and aimless. The veil of consecrated virgins is the sign and the instrument of this restraint. Their life is a mystery whence profane eyes are banished; they wish neither to see nor be seen. Here is the first instruction of Jesus Christ on this subject.

The second treats of renunciation. This means that we must renounce not only ties of the pleasantest kind, but even those that seem