as they are agreeable to God. They love their own felicity, not because it
is theirs, but because it pleases God. Yea, they love the very love with
which they love God, not because it is in them, but because it tends to
God; not because they have and possess it, but because God gives it to
them, and takes His good pleasure in it."

[Footnote 1: _De Justificat_, cap. 12.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 22.]
[Footnote 3: Bk. xi. 13.]


CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.

There are some gloomy minds which imagine that when the motive of charity
and disinterested love is insisted upon all other motives are thereby
depreciated, and that it is wished to do away with them. But does he who
praises one Saint blame the others? If we extol the Seraphim, do we on that
account despise all the lower orders of Angels? Does the man who considers
gold more precious than silver say that silver is nothing at all? Are we
insulting the stars when we admire and praise the sun? And do we despise
marriage because we put celibacy above it?

It is true that, as the Apostle says, charity is the greatest of all
virtues, without which the others have neither life nor soul; but that does
not prevent these others from being virtues, and most desirable as good
habits. In doing virtuous actions the motive of charity is, indeed, the
king of all motives; but blessed also are all those inferior motives which
are subject to it. We may truly say of them what the Queen of Sheba said of
the courtiers of Solomon: _Happy are thy men who always stand before thee
and hear thy wisdom._[1]