"There will soon be none left," said S. Francis de Sales, "who will love poor sinners but God and myself."
Oh! why do we fail in love towards those poor sinful ones! Are they not very much to be pitied?
When they are prosperous, pray for them; but when misfortune comes (and trouble weighs heavily upon the wicked), death depriving them of the only beings they did not hate, afflicting them with a loathsome disease, delivering them up to scorn and misery—oh! then, when all this comes upon them, love them freely. It is by [pg 044] affection alone that we can reach the worst characters, and the souls that are steeped in sin.
How many have died impenitent, who, if only some one had cared for them and shown them love, might have become at last saints in heaven! Oh! the sins that are committed, oh! the souls we suffer to wander from God, and all because we are so wanting in love towards them.
XXIV.
Let us always be on our guard against Prejudice.
Some women have a way (of which they themselves are unconscious) of turning the cold shoulder to some one member of their family.
For what reason? They cannot say, simply because the cause is never very clearly defined and in this lies all the mischief.
Perhaps an air of indifference they may have fancied, and which arose merely from fatigue, or trouble that could not be confided to them.