and of our neighbour, our Blessed Father said that we must use exactly the
same method as we should in mastering any ordinary art or accomplishment.
"We learn," he said, "to study by studying, to play on the lute by playing,
to dance by dancing, to swim by swimming. So also we learn to love God and
our neighbour _by loving_ them, and those who attempt any other method are
mistaken."

You ask me, my sisters, how we can discover whether or not we are making
any progress towards perfection. I cannot do better than consult our
oracle, Blessed Francis, and answer you in his own words, taken from his
eighth Conference. "We can never know what perfection we have reached, for
we are like those who are at sea; they do not know whether they are making
progress or not, but the pilot knows, knowing the course. So we cannot
estimate our own advancement, though we may that of others, for we dare
not assure ourselves when we have done a good action that we have done it
perfectly--humility forbids us to do so. Nay, even were we able to judge of
the virtues of others, we must never determine in our minds that one person
is better than another, because appearances are deceitful, and those who
seem very virtuous outwardly and in the eyes of creatures, may be less so
in the sight of God than others who appear much more imperfect."

I have often heard him say that the multiplicity of means proposed for
advancement towards perfection frequently delays the progress of souls.
They are like travellers uncertain of the way, and who seeing many roads
branching off in different directions stay and waste their time by
enquiring here and there which of them they ought to take in order to
reach their journey's end. He advised people to confine themselves rather
to some special spiritual exercise or virtue, or to some well-chosen
book of piety--for example, to the exercise of the presence of God, or
of submission to His will, or to purity of intention, or some similar