The second is love, which mitigates to the just all the rigours of the law, and, according to the promise of Jesus Christ, changes his yoke, so insupportable to sinners, into a sweet and consoling yoke for them. For a believing soul loves his God still more fervently, more tenderly, and more truly, than he had ever loved the world. Every thing, therefore, even the most rigorous, that he undertakes for him, is either no longer a trial to his heart, or becomes its sweetest care. For the attribute of the holy love, when master of the heart, is either to mitigate the sufferings it occasions, or to change them even into holy pleasures. Thus a soul enamoured of God, if I may dare to speak in this manner, pardons with joy, suffers with confidence, mortifies itself with pleasure, flies from the world with delight, prays with consolation, and fulfils every duty with a holy satisfaction. The more his love increases, the more does his yoke become easy. The more he loves, the happier he is: for it is the height of happiness to love what is become essential and necessary to us.
But the sinner, the more he loves the world, the more unhappy he is: for the more he loves the world, the more do his passions multiply, the more do his desires inflame, the more do his schemes get perplexed, and the more do his anxieties become sharpened. His love is the cause of all his evils: its vivacity is the source of all his sufferings; because the world, which is the cause of them, is incapable of furnishing him with their cure. The more he loves the world, the more is his pride stung by a preference; the more does his haughtiness feel an injury, the more does he sink under a disconcerted project; the more does a disappointed desire afflict him, the more does an unexpected loss weigh him down. The more he loves the world, the more do pleasures become necessary to him; and, as no one can fill the immensity of his heart, the more insupportable does his weariness become: for weariness is the inseparable attendant of every pleasure; and, with all its amusements, the world, ever since it was a world, complains of its lassitude.
And think not that, to accredit virtue, I here affect to exaggerate the misery of worldly souls. I know that the world seems to have its happiness; and that, amid all that whirlwind of cares, motions, fears, anxieties, a small number of fortunate individuals is seen, whose happiness is envied, and who seem, in appearance to enjoy a smiling and tranquil lot. But investigate these vain outsides of happiness and gladness, and you will find real sorrows, distracted hearts, and agitated consciences. Draw near to these men who, in your eyes, appear the happy of the earth, and you will be surprised to find them gloomy, anxious, and sinking under the weight of a criminal conscience. Hear them in those serious and tranquil moments, when the passions, more cooled, allow some influence to reason. They all confess that they are any thing but happy; that the blaze of their fortune shines only at a distance, and appears worthy of envy only to those who know it not. They confess that, amidst all their pleasures and prosperity, they have never been able
