That Thou Shouldst Not Concern Thyself with the Words of the Children of the World.
As soon as worldly people perceive that you desire to follow the devout life, they will let fly against you a thousand shafts of satire and detraction. The shrewdest will call your change hypocrisy, bigotry, and affectation: they will say that the world has turned its back on you, and that, rejected by it, you have recourse to God; your friends will hasten to make you a thousand remonstrances, which, in their view, are most prudent and charitable. By taking this course, they will tell you, you will fall into some melancholy humor, you will lose all credit in the world, you will become insufferable, you will grow old before your time, your household affairs will suffer; one must live in the world as the world does; one can surely save one’s soul without so many mysteries, and a thousand other trifles.
All this, Philothea, is but vain and foolish prattle; in truth, these people are not at all concerned with your health or your affairs: _If you were of the world_, saith the Saviour, _the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, for this cause it hateth you._ We have seen gentlemen and ladies spend the whole night, and even several nights in succession, playing chess and cards: is there a more exhausting, melancholy, and dreary occupation than that? Yet worldly people said not a word, friends took no thought; but if we meditate for an hour, or rise a little earlier than usual, in order to prepare ourselves for Communion, everyone runs to the physician to have us cured of hypochondria and jaundice. They will spend thirty nights dancing, and none will complain; but for the one night of Christmas, everyone coughs and cries out the next day. Who does not see that the world is an unjust judge: indulgent and favorable to its own children, but harsh and severe toward the children of God?
As soon as worldly people perceive that you desire to follow the devout life, they will let fly against you a thousand shafts of satire and detraction. The shrewdest will call your change hypocrisy, bigotry, and affectation: they will say that the world has turned its back on you, and that, rejected by it, you have recourse to God; your friends will hasten to make you a thousand remonstrances, which, in their view, are most prudent and charitable. By taking this course, they will tell you, you will fall into some melancholy humor, you will lose all credit in the world, you will become insufferable, you will grow old before your time, your household affairs will suffer; one must live in the world as the world does; one can surely save one’s soul without so many mysteries, and a thousand other trifles.
All this, Philothea, is but vain and foolish prattle; in truth, these people are not at all concerned with your health or your affairs: _If you were of the world_, saith the Saviour, _the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, for this cause it hateth you._ We have seen gentlemen and ladies spend the whole night, and even several nights in succession, playing chess and cards: is there a more exhausting, melancholy, and dreary occupation than that? Yet worldly people said not a word, friends took no thought; but if we meditate for an hour, or rise a little earlier than usual, in order to prepare ourselves for Communion, everyone runs to the physician to have us cured of hypochondria and jaundice. They will spend thirty nights dancing, and none will complain; but for the one night of Christmas, everyone coughs and cries out the next day. Who does not see that the world is an unjust judge: indulgent and favorable to its own children, but harsh and severe toward the children of God?
To be on good terms with the world, one would have to lose oneself with it. It is impossible to satisfy it, so strange is it; “John came,” saith the Saviour, “neither eating nor drinking, and ye say that he is possessed; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and ye say that He is a Samaritan.” It is the truth, Philothea: if, out of condescension, we relax ourselves to laugh, play, and dance with the world, it will be scandalized; if we do not, it will accuse us of hypocrisy or a gloomy temper; if we adorn ourselves, it will interpret it amiss; if we neglect ourselves, in its eyes that will be baseness of soul; our cheerfulness will be called dissipation, and our mortifications sadness; and since it always looks upon us with an evil eye, we shall never be able to please it. It magnifies our imperfections and proclaims them sins; of our venial sins it makes mortal ones; of our sins of frailty, sins of malice; whereas, as Saint Paul saith, charity is kind, but the world, on the contrary, is malicious; whereas charity thinketh no evil, the world, on the contrary, always thinketh evil; and when it cannot accuse our actions, it accuses our intentions. In short, whether sheep have horns or have none, whether they be white or black, the wolf will nevertheless eat them, if he can; so, whatever we do, the world will always make war upon us: if we are long at confession, it will ask what we can possibly have so much to say; if we are there but a short time, it will say that we do not tell everything; it will spy upon all our movements: for one little word of bitterness, it will protest that we are insufferable; the care of our affairs will seem to it avarice, and our gentleness it will call foolishness; whereas, in the case of the children of this world, their anger will be generosity; their avarice, economy; their license, noble liberty; there is nothing like spiders for spoiling the work of bees.
Let us leave this blind world alone, Philothea; let it cry out as much as it will, like a screech-owl, to trouble the birds of day: let us be steadfast in our purposes, unwavering in our resolutions; perseverance will make it plain whether we are truly and in earnest devoted to God, and engaged in the devout life. Comets and planets are almost equally bright in appearance; but comets disappear in a short time, being only certain fleeting fires, whereas the planets have a perpetual brightness. Thus hypocrisy and true virtue bear a great likeness outwardly; but they are easily distinguished one from the other, in that hypocrisy has no endurance, and vanishes like smoke, whereas true virtue is ever firm and constant. It is no small advantage to us, for the secure establishment of the beginning of our devotion, to receive reproach and slander for it; for by this means we avoid the peril of vanity and pride, which are like the midwives of Egypt, whom the infernal Pharaoh commanded to slay the male children of Israel on the very day of their birth. We are crucified to the world, and the world must be crucified to us: it holds us for fools; let us hold it for senseless.