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| Far Best to Cultivate Virtue from Boyhood.
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Chapter III.—Far Best to Cultivate Virtue from
Boyhood.
Therefore, it is becoming that we should kindle
the unquenchable light of faith in the heart, and gird our loins with
purity, and watch and ever wait for the Lord so that, if He should will
to come and take any of us away in the first period of life, or in the
second, or in the third, and should find us most ready, and working
what He appointed, He may make us to lie down in the bosom of Abraham,
of Isaac, and of Jacob. Now Jeremiah says, “It is good for
a man that he bear the yoke in his youth;”2640
and “that his soul should not depart
from the Lord.” It is good, indeed, from boyhood, to submit
the neck to the divine Hand, and not to shake off, even to old age, the
Rider who guides with pure mind, when the Evil One is ever dragging
down the mind to that which is worse. For who is there that does
not receive through the eyes, through the ears, through the taste and
smell and touch, pleasures and delights, so as to become impatient of
the control of continence as a driver, who checks and vehemently
restrains the horse from evil? Another who turns his thoughts to
other things will think differently; but we say that he offers himself
perfectly to God who strives to keep the flesh undefiled from
childhood, practising virginity; for it speedily brings great and
much-desired gifts of hopes to those who strive for it, drying up the
corrupting lusts and passions of the soul. But come, let us
explain how we give ourselves up to the Lord.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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