The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

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scarce any one will be found to have lived always free. He {254} says
the same of anger; then of detraction; and considering how universally
these crimes prevail among men, cries out: "What hopes of salvation
remain for the generality of mankind, who commit, without reflection,
some or other of these crimes, one of which is enough to damn a soul?"
He mentions also, as general sins, swearing, evil words, vain-glory, not
giving alms, want of confidence in divine providence, and of resignation
to his will, covetousness, and sloth in the practice of virtue. He
complains that whereas the narrow path only leads to heaven, almost all
men throw themselves into the broad way, walking with the multitude in
their employs and actions, seeking their pleasure, interest, or
convenience, not what is safest for their souls. Here what motives for
our tears! A life of mortification and penance he prescribes, as an
essential condition for maintaining a spirit of compunction; saying that
water and fire are not more contrary to each other, than a life of
softness and delights is to compunction; pleasure being the mother of
dissolute laughter and madness. A love of pleasure renders the soul
heavy and altogether earthly; but compunction gives her wings, by which
she raises herself above all created things. We see worldly men mourn
for the loss of friends and other temporal calamities. And are not we
excited to weep for our spiritual miseries? We can never cease if we
have always before our eyes our sins, our distance from heaven, the
pains of hell, God's judgments, and our danger of losing Him, which is
the most dreadful of all the torments of the damned.
In his second book On Compunction, which is addressed to Stelechius, he
expresses his surprise that he should desire instructions on compunction
of one so cold in the divine service as he was; but only one whose
breast is inflamed with divine love, and whose words are more
penetrating than fire, can speak of that virtue. He says that
compunction requires in the first place, solitude, not so much that of
the desert, as that which is interior, or of the mind. For seeing that a
multitude of objects disturbs the sight, the soul must restrain all the
senses, remain serene, and without tumult or noise within herself,
always intent on God, employed in his love, deaf to corporeal objects.
As men placed on a high mountain hear nothing of the noise of a city
situated below them, only a confused stir which they no way heed; so a
Christian soul, raised on the mountain of true wisdom, regards not the
hurry of the world; and though she is not destitute of senses, is not
molested by them, and applies herself and her whole attention to
heavenly things. Thus St. Paul was crucified and insensible to the
world, raised as far above its objects as living men differ from
carcasses. Not only St. Paul, amid a multiplicity of affairs, but also
David, living in the noise of a great city and court, enjoyed solitude
of mind, and the grace of perfect compunction, and poured forth tears
night and day, proceeding from an ardent love and desire of God and his