CHAPTER V. Encouragement for the Tempted Soul.

GOD never permits such grievous temptations and assaults to try any,
save those souls whom He designs to lead on to His own living, highest
love, but nevertheless it does not follow as a natural consequence that
they are certain to attain thereto. Indeed, it has often happened that
those who had been stedfast under violent assaults, failing to
correspond faithfully to Divine Grace, have yielded under the pressure
of very trifling temptations. I would warn you of this, my child, so
that, should you ever be tried by great temptations, you may know that
God is showing special favour to you, thereby proving that He means to
exalt you in His Sight; but that at the same time you may ever be
humble and full of holy fear, not overconfident in your power to resist
lesser temptations because you have overcome those that were greater,
unless by means of a most stedfast faithfulness to God.

Come what may in the shape of temptation, attended by whatsoever of
delectation,–so long as your will refuses consent, not merely to the
temptation itself, but also to the delectation, you need have no
fear,–God is not offended. When any one has swooned away, and gives no
sign of life, we put our hand to his heart, and if we find the
slightest fluttering there, we conclude that he still lives, and that,
with the help of stimulants and counter-irritants, we may restore
consciousness and power. Even so, sometimes amid the violence of
temptation the soul seems altogether to faint away, and to lose all
spiritual life and action. But if you would be sure how it really is,
put your hand on the heart. See whether heart and will yet have any
spiritual motion; that is to say, whether they fulfil their own special
duty in refusing consent to and acceptance of temptation and its
gratification; for so long as the power to refuse exists within the
soul, we may be sure that Love, the life of the soul, is there, and
that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, is within, although, it may
be, hidden; and that by means of stedfast perseverance in prayer, and
the Sacraments, and confidence in God, strength will be restored, and
the soul will live with a full and joyous life.
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