counsel, which guides and directs us amidst the difficulties which we encounter in the path of virtue. These gifts are so many rays of light which proceed from the divine centre of grace, and in Scripture are called an unction or anointing. But you have the unction from the Holy One, and know all things."[1] Oil has the double virtue of giving light and healing, and fitly represents the divine unction which enlightens the darkness of our understanding and heals the wounds of our will. This is the oil which exceeds in value the purest balsam, and for which David rejoiced when he said: "Thou, O Lord! hast anointed my head with oil."[2] It is evident that the Royal Prophet did not speak here of a material oil, and that by the head he designated, according to the interpretation of Didymus, the noblest part of the soul, or the understanding, which is illumined and supported by the unction of the Holy Spirit.
Since it is the property and function of grace to make us virtuous, we must love virtue and abhor sin, which we cannot do if the understanding be not divinely enlightened to discern the malice of sin and the beauty of virtue. For the will, according to philosophers and theologians, is a blind faculty, incapable of acting without the guidance of the intellect, which points out the good it should choose and love, and the evil it should reject and hate. The same is true of fear, of hope, and of hatred for sin. We can never acquire these sentiments
