efend His truth--an honor which pertains not
even to the angels of heaven! May not this consideration alone well
inflame us to offer ourselves to God to be employed in any way in such
honorable service?

Many persons, however, can not refrain from pleading against God, or, at
least, from complaining against Him for not better supporting their
weakness. It is marvelously strange, they say, how God, after having
chosen us for His children, allows us to be trampled upon and tormented
by the ungodly. I answer: Even were it not apparent why He does so, He
might well exercise His authority over us, and fix our lot at His
pleasure. But when we see that Jesus Christ is our pattern, ought we
not, without inquiring further, to esteem it great happiness that we are
made like Him? God, however, makes it very apparent what the reasons are
for which He is pleased that we should be persecuted. Had we nothing
more than the consideration suggested by St. Peter (I Peter i., 7), we
were disdainful indeed not to acquiesce in it. He says that since gold
and silver, which are only corruptible metals, are purified and tested
by fire, it is but reasonable that our faith, which surpasses all the
riches of the world, should be so tried.

It were easy indeed for God to crown us at once without requiring us to
sustain any combats; but as it is His pleasure that until the end of the
world Christ shall reign in the midst of His enemies, so it is also His
pleasure that we, being placed in the midst of them, shall suffer their
oppression and violence till He deliver us. I know, indeed, that the
flesh rebels when it is to be brought to this point, but still the will
of God must have the mastery. If we feel some repugnance in ourselves,
it need not surprize us; for it is only too natural for us to shun the
cross. Still let us not fail to surmount it, knowing that God accepts
our obedience, provided we bring all our feelings and wishes into
captivity, and make them subject to Him.

When prophets and apostles went to death, it was not without feeling
some inclination to recoil. "They shall carry thee whither thou wouldst
not," said our Lord Jesus Christ to Peter. (John xxi., 18.) When such
fears of death arise within us, let us gain the mastery over them, or
rather let God gain it; and meanwhile, let us feel assured that we offer
Him a pleasing sacrifice when we resist and do violence to our
inclinations for the purpose of placing ourselves entirely und