which the virtuous enjoy. Hence they are ever ready to sing with the prophet, "How sweet, O Lord! are Thy words to my palate, more than honey to my mouth."[1]
Reflect on these truths, and you will soon understand the Scriptures where they seem to speak in contradictory terms of the ease or difficulty of practising virtue. At one time David says: "For the sake of the words of Thy lips I have kept hard ways."[2] At another: "I have been delighted in the way of Thy testimonies, as in all riches."[3] Both declarations are true, for the path of virtue is difficult to nature, easy to grace. Our Saviour Himself tells us this when He says: "My yoke is sweet and My burden light."[4] By the word yoke He expresses the difficulty which nature experiences. By calling it sweet He shows us the power of grace to enable us to carry it. This He accomplishes by sharing our burden, according to that of the prophet: "I will be to them as one that taketh off the yoke from their jaws."[5] Is it, then, astonishing that that yoke is light which God Himself bears? The Apostle experienced this when he said: "In all things we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed; we are straitened, but are not destitute; we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken; we are cast down, but we perish not."[6] Behold on one side the weight of tribulation and on the other the sweetness which God communicates to it.
