them nothing. They varnish it over with an
appearance of honesty and decency, and fair-minded men take them for
what they appear to be, and should be, and they pass for such. These
watches are pretty to look upon, beautiful, magnificent, but they are
stopped, the interior is out of order, the main-spring is broken, the
hands that run across the face lie. These blades are bright and
handsome, but they are dull, blunt, full of nicks, good enough for
coarse and vulgar work, but useless for the fine, delicate work for
which they were made.

The master mechanic and artist of our souls who wants trustworthy
timepieces and keen blades, will not be deceived by these gaudy
trinkets, and will reject them. Others may esteem you for this or that
quality, admire this or that qualification you possess, be taken with
their superficial gloss and accidental usefulness. The quality required
by Him who made you is that your soul be filled with charity, and
proven by absence of sin.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
LOVE OF NEIGHBOR.

THE precept, written in our hearts, as well as in the law, to love God,
commands us, at the same time, to love the neighbor. When you go to
confession, you are told to be sorry for your sins and to make a firm
purpose of amendment. These appear to be two different injunctions; yet
in fact and reality, they are one and the same thing, for it is
impossible to abhor and detest sin, having at the same moment the
intention of committing it. One therefore includes the other; one is
not sincere and true without the other; therefore one cannot be without
the other. So it is with love of God and of the neighbor; these two
parts of one precept are coupled together because they complete each
other, and they amount practically to the same thing.

The neighbor we are to love is not alone those for whom we naturally
have affection, such as parents, friends, benefactors, etc., whom it is
easy to love. But our neighbor is all mankind, those far and those
near, those who have blessed us and those who have wronged us, the
enemy as well as the friend; all who have within them, as we have, the
image and likeness of God. No human being can we put outside the pale
of neighborly love.

As for the love we bear others, it is of course one in substance, but
it may be different in degree and various in quality. It may be more or
less tender, intense, emphatic. Some we love more, others, less; yet
for all that, we love them. It is impossible