Saviour! with reason may I ponder on the words Thou didst address to Thy servant as he was meditating on Thy sufferings before the crucifix: “Often think to yourself: oh, how little! oh, how much!”[1] How little is what I have to do and to suffer for Thy sake! How much I shall gain as a reward! For almost a nothing Thou wilt make me happy, and happy for all eternity! O happiness! O eternal happiness! Here words fail me, like St. Chrysostom, who, ravished out of himself, as it were, by this same meditation, could say nothing else but: O heaven! what art thou not worth? O most perfect joy! of which one can say that it will never come to an end, what should one not do to gain thee? Yes, my dear brethren; not only shall all the joys of heaven be everlasting in themselves, but what fully completes the happiness of the elect, the blessed in heaven shall be certain and assured that their happiness shall last forever. This we shall briefly consider in the
Second Part.
He who is not sure of his happiness cannot be happy. How can the possession of a great good contribute to my happiness if I do not know that I own it, or otherwise am not sure of owning it for a long time? The royal prince, who is still in the cradle, is really the heir to a great and rich kingdom; but as he neither knows nor understands anything of this, how can it help to make him happy? The beggar’s child is just as contented and joyful, although it will spend its life in poverty; it laughs, as gaily when one sings to or plays with it; and the prince’s child cries just as hard as the beggar’s when it is hurt. Neither of them knows anything of poverty or wealth, and hence neither is glad or sorry on account of its state. Generally speaking, the hope of enjoying a long life on earth in health and prosperity makes glad the heart of man; how would it be if we could be quite sure and certain of such good fortune? If an angel had appeared to Mathusala in his youth and told him that he should live to be more than nine hundred years of age, he might have said to himself to his great satisfaction: what a fine time I have still to live on earth! I can have many a pleasant day before I need fear the approach of death. He lived indeed to a great age, but as he was a mortal man, and as such had to be in hourly and momentary expectation of death, the long life that was before him could not have been a great source of con-
- ↑ Sæpe cogita; o quam parum! o quam multum!
