riches in poverty, their glory in contempt, and their delights in the voluntary privation of earthly pleasures. Hence St. John Climacus asks: Who is truly a religious? It is, he says, the nun that offers continual violence to herself: and when shall this violence cease? When, answers St. Prosper, life shall have an end. Then shall the battle cease when the conquest of the eternal kingdom shall be obtained. If you remember to have hitherto offended God, and if you desire to be saved, you should be consoled when you see that God sends you occasions of suffering. St. John Chrysostom writes: "Sin is an ulcer and chastisement a medicinal iron: therefore the sinner if left unpunished is most miserable." Sin is an imposthume of the soul: if tribulation do not come to extract the putrid humor the soul is lost. Miserable the sinner who is not punished after his sin in this life.
Be persuaded, then, says St. Augustine, that when the Lord sends you suffering he acts as a physician; and that the tribulation that he sends you is not the punishment of your condemnation, but a remedy for your salvation. "Let man understand," says the holy Doctor, "that God is a physician, and that tribulation is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation." Hence you ought to thank God when he chastises you; for his chastisements are a proof that he loves you, and receives you into the number of his children. Whoever the Lord loveth, says St. Paul, he chastiseth; and he scourgeth
