Page:Thecompleteascet01grimuoft.djvu/294

 paying compliments  to  seculars. "With externs,"  says St. Catharine  of  Sienna  in  a  letter  to  her  niece,  "you should  be  modest;  your  head  should  be  bowed  down, and  your  manner  and  conversation  simple  and  unaffected." At the  grate  be  careful  to  abstain  from  unguarded looks  and  indecent  laughter,  and  never  appear in a  habit  affectedly  neat. It would  be  a  still  greater fault to  go  to  the  grate  with  any  badge  of  worldly  pomp or vanity.

In a  word,  if  you  expect  to  escape  every  danger,  remove yourself  as  much  as  possible  from  all  conversation with seculars. "Sit solitary,"  says  St.  Bernard,  "  as the  turtle:  have  nothing  to  do  with  crowds." Remain in solitude;  love  the  choir  and  the  cell,  and  shun  the parlor as  the  abode  of  pestilence. To consecrate  your whole being  to  God,  you  have  left  the  world;  what, then, have  you  to  do  with  seculars? "If," says  the Venerable Sister  Jane  of  St. Stephen, of  the  Order  of  St. Francis,  "you  are  the  spouse  of  the  King  of  kings,  turn not  your  eyes  toward  slaves." It is  a  crime  in  a  slave to fix  his  eyes  on  the  king's  spouse,  and  should  the queen take  complacency  in  his  attention  to  her,  she would be  guilty  of  a  similar  transgression. Speaking of nuns,  St.  Catharine  of  Sienna  says:  "We  shall  not  be spouses  but  sacrilegious  violators  of  our  engagements, if  we  seek  for  happiness  in  the  gratification  of  self-love; if  we  hate  the  cell,  and  love  the  society  of  seculars." Should you,  in  conversation,  ever  feel  a  disorderly  affection, stifle  it  at  once  before  it  acquires  the  strength  of  a giant. "While," says  St.  Jerome,  "the  enemy  is  small, destroy  him." To kill  a  lion  when  young  is  an  easy task; but  to  conquer  him  when  he  has  attained  full growth is  a  work  of  extreme  and  insuperable  difficulty.