Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/666

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646
JESUIT EDUCATION

obtained in the most celebrated university of the kingdom."

Not all teachers may have the consolation of seeing their pupils in high positions. It happens that the best efforts of a devoted teacher seem to be lost on many pupils. Even this will not discourage the religious teacher. He will remember that his model, Jesus Christ, did not reap the fruit which might have been expected from the teaching of such a Master. Not all that he sowed brought forth fruit, a hundredfold, not even thirtyfold. Some fell upon stony ground, and some other fell among the thorns, and yet he went on patiently sowing. So a teacher ought not to be disheartened if the success should not correspond with his labors. He knows that one reward is certainly in store for him, the measure of which will not be his success, but his zeal; not the fruit, but his efforts. The Great Master has promised that "whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water, he shall not lose his reward."[1] What, then, may he expect, who has given the little ones of Christ not a cup of cold water, but with great patience and labor has opened to them the streams of knowledge, human and divine? Indeed, "they that instruct many to justice shall shine as stars for all eternity."[2]

  1. Matth. 10, 42.
  2. Daniel 12, 3.