rational and even senseless creatures that may have occasioned us annoyances.
If it is poverty, we shall be quite ready to be stripped of all the consolations of this world, great and small.
If it is charity, we shall perform acts of love towards our neighbour, through whose instrumentality we may thus progress; and towards our Lord God, as the First and Loving Cause, from Whom our discomforts proceed, or by Whom they are permitted to arise, for our discipline and spiritual improvement.
What has been said of the various accidents which may every day happen is equally true of a trial of long continuance, such as sickness, or other like affliction; we may yet go on making acts of the virtue, in which we are at the time exercising ourselves.
CHAPTER XL.
Of the length of time to be given to the Exercise of each particular Virtue, and of the marks of Spiritual Advancement.
IT is not for me to determine the length of time to be bestowed upon acquiring each virtue. In this we must be guided by the state and needs of each person, by the progress they are
