he will reflect on the remedies for them. By meditating on eternity, David was excited to the practice of virtue, and to sorrow and works of penance for his sins. I thought upon the days of old, and I had in my mind the eternal years, . . . and I was exercised, and I swept my spirit.[1] The spouse in the Canticles said: The flowers have appeared in our land: the time of pruning is come: the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.[2] When the soul, like the solitary turtle, retires and recollects itself in meditation to converse with God, then the flowers, that is, good desires, appear; then comes the time of pruning, that is, the correction of faults that are discovered in mental prayer. "Consider," says St. Bernard, "that the time of pruning is at hand, if the time of meditation has gone before." For, says the saint in another place, meditation regulates the affections, directs the actions, and corrects defects.
II. Besides, without meditation there is not strength to resist the temptations of our enemies, and to practise the virtues of the Gospel. Meditation, says the Venerable Bartholomew of the Martyrs, is like fire with regard to iron, which when cold is hard, and can be wrought only with difficulty, but placed in the fire it becomes soft, and the workman gives it any form he wishes. To observe the divine precepts and counsels, it is necessary to have a tender heart — that is, a heart docile and prepared to receive the impressions of celestial inspirations, and ready to obey them. It was this that Solomon asked of God: Give, therefore, to thy servant an understanding
