rooted in the soul. If you are striving to acquire one particular virtue, you remember it more readily on all occasions; your mind too is sharpened by the discovery of new ways and motives for cultivating it, and the will bends itself more easily and earnestly in the pursuit of it, than if it were occupied with many virtues at once.
And with this uniform exercise, the acts which concern one single virtue are performed with less fatigue, in consequence of their resemblance to one another. The performance of one act facilitates the performance of the next, which is like unto it; and by this common likeness they make a deeper impression on us, the seat of the heart being already prepared and disposed for receiving those which are newly produced, having already made room for similar acts before.
These reasons have the greater force, as it is quite certain that every one who practises himself in one virtue at the same time learns the exercise of the rest; and thus, through the inseparable bond which exists between them, when one virtue grows the rest increase with it, as rays proceeding from one and the same Divine Light.
