good days"; which proverb I have often pondered and much admired for its excellent true sense, namely, that the wishes of men are contrary to one another; they seek none but good days, and, when these arrive, are less able to bear them than evil days.
What, then, would God have us here lay to heart but this, that the cross is held in honor even among the enemies of the cross! For all things must needs be tempered and sanctified with the relics of the cross, lest they decay; even as the meat must be seasoned with salt, that it may not breed worms. And why will we not gladly accept this tempering which God sends, and which, if He did not send it, our own life, weakened with pleasures and blessings, would of itself demand? Hence we see with what truth the Book of Wisdom says of God, "He[1] reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly."[2] And if we examine these blessings, the truth of Moses' words, in Deuteronomy xxxii, will become plain, "He bore him on His shoulders, He led him about, and kept him as the apple of His eye."[3] With these words we may stop the mouths of those ungrateful praters who hold that there is in this life more of evil than of good. For there is no lack of good things and endless sweet blessings, but they are lacking who are of the same mind with him who said, "The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord";[4] and again, "The earth is full of His praise";[5] and in Psalm ciii, "The earth is full of Thy riches";[6] "Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through Thy work."[7] Hence we sing every day in the Mass:[8] "Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory."[9] Why do we sing this? Because there are many blessings for which God may be praised, but it is done only by those who see the fulness of them. Even as we said concerning the evils of the first image,[10] that a man's evils are only so great as he in his thoughts acknowledges them to be, so it is also with
