Holy Ghost recommends, and which the saints
embraced, resembled that of Jesus Christ, being founded in the same
motive or principle, and having the same exercises and employments, and
the same end. Christ was conducted by the Holy Ghost into the desert,
and he there spent his time in prayer and fasting. Woe to those whom
humor or passion leads into solitude, or who consecrate it not to God by
mortification, sighs of penance, and hymns of divine praise. To those
who thus sanctify their desert, or cell, it will be an anticipated
paradise, an abyss of spiritual advantages and comforts, known only to
such as have enjoyed them. _The Lord will change the desert into a place
of delights, and will make the solitude a paradise and a garden worthy
of himself._[4] In it only joy and jubilee shall be seen, nothing shall
be heard but thanksgiving and praise. It is the dwelling of a
terrestrial seraph, whose sole employment is to labor to know, and
correct, all secret disorders of his own soul, to forget the world, and
all objects of vanity which could distract or entangle him; to subdue
his senses, to purify the faculties of his soul, and entertain in his
{668} heart a constant fire of devotion, by occupying it assiduously on
God, Jesus Christ, and heavenly things, and banishing all superfluous
desires and thoughts; lastly, to make daily progress in purity of
conscience, humility, mortification, recollection, and prayer, and to
find all his joy in the most fervent and assiduous adoration, love, and
praise of his sovereign Creator and Redeemer.

Footnotes:
1. Coll. b. 4, c. 21, p. 81.
2. A city in the north of Thebais, in Egypt.
3. S. Aug. l. pro cura de mortuis, c. 17, p. 294.
4. Isa. lxiii.

ST. RUPERT, OR ROBERT, C.

BISHOP OF SALTZBOURG.

HE was by birth a Frenchman, and of royal blood; but still more
illustrious for his learning, and the extraordinary virtues he practised
from his youth. He exercised himself is austere fasting, watching, and
other mortifications; was a great lover of chastity and temperance; and
so charitable as always to impoverish himself to enrich the poor. His
reputation drew persons from remote provinces to receive his advice and
instructions. He removed all their doubts and scruples, comforted the
afflicted, cured the sick, and healed the disorders of souls. So
distinguished a merit raised him to the episcopal see of Worms. But that
people, being for the most part idolaters, could not bear the lu