after he was ordained deacon in 380. In the
first, he shows that all things are governed by divine providence, by
which even afflictions are always sent and directed for the good of the
elect. For any one to doubt of this is to turn infidel: and if we
believe it, what can we fear whatever tribulations befall us, and to
whatever height their waves ascend? Though the conduct of divine
providence, with regard to the just, be not uniform, it sends to none
any tribulations which are not for their good; when they are most heavy,
they are designed by God to prepare men for the greatest crowns.
Moreover, God is absolute master to dispose of us, as a potter of his
clay. What then have we to say? or how dare we presume to penetrate into
his holy counsels? The promise of God can never fail: this gives us an
absolute security of the highest advantages, mercy, and eternal glory,
which are designed us in our afflictions. St. Chrysostom represents to
Stagirius that his trials had cured his former vanity, anger, and sloth,
and it was owing to them that he now spent nights and days in fasting,
prayer, and reading. In the second book, he presses Stagirius
strenuously to reject all melancholy and gloomy thoughts, and not to be
uneasy either about his cure, or the grief his situation was likely to
give his father, but leaving the issue to God, with perfect resignation
to ask of him this mercy, resting in the entire confidence that whatever
God ordained would turn to his greatest advantage. In the third book, he
mentions to Stagirius several of his acquaintance, whose sufferings,
both in mind and body, were more grievous than those with which he was
afflicted. He bids him also pay a visit to the hospitals and prisons;
for he would there see that his cross was light in comparison of what
many others endured. {255} He tells him that sin ought to be to him the
only subject of grief; and that he ought to rejoice in sufferings as the
means by which his sins were to be expiated. A firm confidence in God, a
constant attention to his presence, and perpetual prayer, he calls the
strong ramparts against sadness.

When the Arian emperor Valens, in 375, commanded the monks to be turned
out of their deserts, and enrolled in the troops, and several Catholics
reviled them as bigots and madmen, St. Chrysostom took up his pen to
justify them, by three books, entitled, Against the Impugners of a
Monastic State. T. 1, p. 44, he expresses his surprise that any