De Sales begins: "If is true I am continually imploring that many
graces may descend upon your soul; but above all, and for the sake
of all, do I ask for divine love; for therein is our all. It is our
honey, in which, and by which, all the affections of our hearts
should be preserved and sweetened. My God, how happy is the
interior kingdom, when this holy loye reigneth there How happy are
the faculties of our soul, which obey a king so holy and so wise
No, under his obedience, and in this state, he suffereth not great
sins to dwell, nor even any affection for them. True, he allows
them to approach nigh to the frontiers, in order to exercise the
interior virtues in war, and to make them valiant; and he suffers
venial sins and imperfections, like spies, to run up and down in
his kingdom: but that is only to make us know that without him we
should be a prey to all our enemies." The first section discusses
our duties towards God. One section even tells us how to deal with
temptations against the holy Faith. The next section deals with our
duties towards our neighbor. "It is necessary we should know that
love has its seat in the heart, and that we can never love our
neighbor too much, or exceed the bounds of reason in that love,
provided that it resides in the heart; for, so far as regards the
signs of that love, we may easily fall short or exceed, going
beyond the rules of sound reason. The great St. Bernard says, that"
the measure of loving God is to love him without measure," and that
in our love we should assign no limits, but allow it to spread its
branches as far as it can. "That is here said of the love of God
must also be understood of the love of our neighbor, provided
always that the love of God floats above it, and holds the first
rank." Part of our love of neighbor is obedience: "To animate us to
obedience when we are tempted against it, we should consider its
excellence, its beauty, its merit, and even its utility. This
observation applies to souls who are not yet well settled in the
love of obedience; for when there is merely question of a simple
aversion or disgust, we must make an act of love and apply
ourselves to the work. Our Lord, even in his passion, felt a sorrow
even unto death, as he himself says; but in the sharp point of his
spirit he was resigned to the will of his Father; all the rest was
a movement of nature." The virtue of simplicity is described as
well: "Simplicity is nothing else than an act of pure and simple
charity, which has only one end, namely, that of pleasing God; and
our soul is simple, when we have no other pretension in whatever we
do." The next section discusses our duties towards ourselves:
"Self-love may be mortified in us, but it, notwithstanding, never
dies: on the contrary, from time to time, and on different
occasions, it shoots forth germs in us which show that although it
may be cut off at the stalk, it is not yet rooted up." We follow
with a section on devotion: "The virtue of devotion is nothing else
than a general inclination and promptitude of spirit in doing that
which one knows is agreeable to God." We close with reflections on
the principle feasts of the ecclesiastical year.
General
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