Page:TheYoungMansGuide.djvu/524

 for a young man who possesses a fortune of his own, and can dispose of it as he pleases, to renounce now and for all future time all claim to call anything his own, or to appropriate anything for his own use without the permission of a superior? Can it be easy for him during the whole of his life in the convent to ask, like a child, for permission to keep a trifling gift, or to exchange it or give it away?

4. The vow of chastity also involves a great sacrifice, namely, the complete renunciation of married family life - the observance of virginal purity for the Saviour's sake. This sacrifice is peculiarly pleasing to Our Lord.

The Saviour came into the world in a state of poverty; He renounced everything, and was cradled on the rough straw of the manger. But one thing He never gave up; even in the stable His eye wanted to rest upon virginal souls. Therefore He willed to see Mary and Joseph beside the manger. Poor as He came into the world, He also died; His death-bed was the hard wood of the cross. But there also, amid the gloom and sufferings, two lilies of purity, Mary and John, were at the foot of the cross.

Like these lilies ought all those young men to be who are planted in the chosen garden of the Lord, in the religious state. This life of virginal purity involves a perpetual conflict, an endeavor to obtain the crown of