eive,
with sufficient docility, the instructions of those who are as
imperfect as ourselves. A thousand suspicions, jealousies, fears, and
prejudices prevent us from profiting, as we might, by what we hear
from men; and tho they announce the most serious truths, yet what they
do weakens the effect of what they say. In a word, it is God alone who
can perfectly teach us.

St. Bernard said, in writing to a pious friend--If you are seeking
less to satisfy a vain curiosity than to get true wisdom, you will
sooner find it in deserts than in books. The silence of the rocks and
the pathless forests will teach you better than the eloquence of the
most gifted men. "All," says St. Augustine, "that we possess of truth
and wisdom is a borrowed good flowing from that fountain for which
we ought to thirst in the fearful desert of this world, that, being
refreshed and invigorated by these dews from heaven, we may not faint
upon the road that conducts us to a better country. Every attempt to
satisfy the cravings of our hearts at other sources only increases
the void. You will be always poor if you do not possess the only true
riches." All light that does not proceed from God is false; it only
dazzles us; it sheds no illumination upon the difficult paths in which
we must walk, along the precipices that are about us.

Our experience and our reflections can not, on all occasions, give us
just and certain rules of conduct. The advice of our wisest, and most
sincere friends is not always sufficient; many things escape their
observation, and many that do not are too painful to be spoken. They
suppress much from delicacy, or sometimes from a fear of transgressing
the bounds that our friendship and confidence in them will allow. The
animadversions of our enemies, however severe or vigilant they may
be, fail to enlighten us with regard to ourselves. Their malignity
furnishes our self-love with a pretext for the indulgence of the
greatest faults. The blindness of our self-love is so great that we
find reasons for being satisfied with ourselves, while all the world
condemn us. What must we learn from all this darkness? That it is
God alone who can dissipate it; that it is He alone whom we can never
doubt; that He alone is true, and knoweth all things; that if we go
to Him in sincerity, He will teach us what men dare not tell us, what
books can not--all that is essential for us to know.

Be assured that the greatest obstacle to true wisdom is th