very great consolation to us, is that there can be no mark more certain than this of God's dwelling in a soul, and of the good state it is in. St. Bernard says, that there is no more certain mark of God being present in a man's heart, than the desire of still increasing in grace, and he proves it by the saying of the Wise Man, already quoted, " Those that eat me shall still hunger, and those that drink me shall still thirst." If then you hunger and thirst for heavenly things, rejoice, since it is an evident sign that God dwells in your soul. It is he who excites in you this hunger and thirst; and you have certainly found the true vein of this precious mine, because you constantly adhere so closely to it. As the terrier, whilst he meets nothing, beats the field without spirit, but on finding the scent, pursues eagerly, and stops not till he runs down the game; in like manner whoever tastes the sweetness of the divine odour runs after it without ceasing, and cries out with the spouse in the Canticles, " Draw me after thee, we will run in the odour of thy divine perfumes." (Cant. i. 3.) It is God who is within you that draws you thus after him. But if you feel not this kind of hunger and thirst, you may justly fear that God dwells not in your heart; for, as we have already said after St. Gregory, ft is peculiar to spiritual things, that when we do not possess them, we love them not, and are no ways concerned about them.
St. Bernard said he trembled, and his hair stood of an end, as often as he reflected on these words of the Holy Ghost, uttered bjr the mouth of the Wise Man, " Man knows not whether he deserves love or hatred." (Eccles. ix. 1 .) This passage is terrible, says this great saint, and I shook with horror as often as I thought on it; never without trembling repeating that sentence, " Who knows whether he deserves love or hatred?" (Serm. 23 on the Cant.) If then this reflection made a great saint tremble, who was, as it were, a living pillar of the Church, what effect ought it to have on us, who, on account of our sins, have so many causes of fear, "who carry within us the answer of death "? (2 Cor. i. 9.) I am certain I have offended God, but am ignorant whether or not he has forgiven me; who would not tremble on making this reflection? But if we could possibly be assured that our sins were remitted, and that we are in God's grace; if we could find a certainty of this, what value ought we not set on it? For though without a particular revelation from God, we cannot have in this life an infallible certainty that we are in the state of grace, yet there are signs that give a moral probability of it, and the surest
