great deal; it seemed to me a hard thing to have to leave parents, children, husband, wife, dear friends, money, house and home, and the whole world; now I see that all this is easy enough; I did not know it then as I do now.
We think much of those things now, because we do not understand matters clearly. Shown by a simile. I have been like a little child. Before a child comes to the use of reason, it generally thinks more of its nurse than of its parents. If you ask it whom it likes best, it will indeed point to its father or mother, because it has been taught to do so; but all the time it loves the nurse more than either. In the father’s arms it cries; in the nurse’s it laughs again. Why? Because the child is better off with her; she feeds it, dandles it in her arms, dresses it and plays with it in different fashions; while the father, who has serious business to mind, has no time for such trifles. But when the child begins to understand a little, then it changes its mind, then it loves father and mother more than a hundred nurses; for it sees then that the nurse is but a poor servant who works for wages, and has nothing more to expect, while its parents are rich and will at some future day leave it a good legacy. So it is with us, my dear brethren; as long as we are in health and strength we have a great opinion of what we possess in and of the world; the earth is, as it were, our nurse that feeds us, that has to do with us always, giving us food and drink, clothing and occupation, according to the decrees of the Creator; it presents to our eyes, ears, and other senses all sorts of agreeable objects, as the Prophet Baruch writes: “For I nourished them with joy,”[1] like a nurse. Therefore we love the world, and have a natural inclination to love it more than we love God, although He is our true Father, from whom we receive everything, and from whom we expect an eternal inheritance in heaven. What is the cause of that? Because we have but a dim knowledge of God by faith. We acknowledge indeed that God is to be prized and loved more than all the world can give us; we show this too in reality when we serve God and keep His commandments, and profess that we are willing to lose all rather than offend Him grievously; because we have been taught this from our youth upwards and have heard it so often. Yet as far as the natural inclination is concerned, we fear and shudder at the idea of being separated from the world and its goods, no matter how worthless they are, and of going to our Father in heaven.
The just But when the eyes of the mind are properly opened for the
- ↑ Nutrivi enim illos cum jucunditate.—Baruch iv. 11.
