should avoid excessive adornment, and
neither associate nor talk with members of the opposite sex, nor even
look upon them, and whatsoever else may be conducive to chastity. In
all these things no one can fix a definite rule and measure. Each one
must watch himself and see what things are needful to him for chastity,
in what quantity and how long they help him to be chaste, that he may
thus choose and observe them for himself; if he cannot do this, let him
for a time give himself up to be controlled by another, who may hold
him to such observance until he can learn to rule himself. This was the
purpose for which the monastic houses were established of old, to teach
young people discipline and purity.

III. In this work a good strong faith is a great help, more noticeably
so than in almost any other; so that for this reason also Isaiah xi.
says that "faith is a girdle of the reins," that is, a guard of
chastity. For he who so lives that he looks to God for all grace, takes
pleasure in spiritual purity; therefore he can so much more easily
resist fleshly impurity: and in such faith the Spirit tells him of a
certainty how he shall avoid evil thoughts and everything that is
repugnant to chastity. For as the faith in divine favor lives without
ceasing and works in all works, so it also does not cease its
admonitions in all things that are pleasing to God or displease Him; as
St. John says in his Epistle: "Ye need not that any man teach you: for
the divine anointing, that is, the Spirit of God, teacheth you of all
things."

Yet we must not despair if we are not soon rid of the temptation, nor
by any means imagine that we are free from it as long as we live, and
we must regard it only as an incentive and admonition to prayer,
fasting, watching, laboring, and to other exercises for the quenching
of the flesh, especially to the practice and exercise of faith in God.
For that chastity is not precious which is at ease, but that which is
at war with unchastity, and fights, and without ceasing drives out all
the poison with which the flesh and the evil spirit attack it. Thus St.
Peter says, "I beseech you, abstain from fleshly desires and lusts,
which war always against the soul." And St. Paul, Romans vi, "Ye shall
not obey the body in its lusts." In these and like passages it is shown
that no one is without evil lust; but that everyone shall and must
daily fight against it. But although this brings uneasiness and pain,
it is non