Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/60

 which they produce. Sinners hope to find peace in their sins; but what peace can they enjoy? " There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord." (Is. xlviii. 22.) I abstain from saying more at present on the unhappy life of sinners: I shall speak of it in another place. At present, it is enough for you to know that God gives peace to the souls who love him, and not to those who despise him. Instead of seeking to be the friends of God, sinners wish to be the slaves of Satan, who is a cruel and merciless tyrant to all who submit to his yoke. " Crudelis est et non miserebitur." (Jer. vi. 23.) And if he promises delights, he does it, as St. Cyprian says, not for our welfare, but that we may be the companions of his torments in hell: " Ut habeat socios poenae, socios gehenna)."

Second Point. The saints are truly wise.

10. Let us be persuaded that the truly wise are those who know how to love God and to gain Heaven. Happy the man to whom God has given the science of the saints. "Dedit illi scientiam sanctorum." (Wis. x. 10.) Oh! how sublime the science which teaches us to know how to love God and to save our souls! Happy, says St. Augustine, is the man " who knows God, although he is ignorant of other things." They who know God, the love which he merits, and how to love him, stand not in need of any other knowledge. They are wiser than those who are masters of many sciences, but know not how to love God. Brother Egidius, of the order of St. Francis, once said to St. Bonaventure: Happy you, Father Bonayenture, who are so learned, and who, by your learning, can become more holy than I can, who am a poor ignorant man. Listen, replied the saint: if an old woman knows how to love God better than I do, she is more learned and more holy than I am. At hearing this, Brother Egidius exclaimed: " poor old woman! poor old woman! Father Bonaventure says that, if you love God more than he does, you can surpass him in sanctity."

11. This excited the envy of St. Augustine, and made him ashamed of himself. " Surgunt indocti," he exclaimed, " et rapiunt coelum." Alas! the ignorant rise up, and bear away the kingdom of Heaven; and