The Superior settled the matter by telling the good Father to let the clock take its own course, but always to use soft words to those who might complain, and to assure each one of them that he would do his best to keep the clock right if possible. "So let it be with you," concluded our Blessed Father. "You are going to be exposed to the criticism of many; if you attend to all that they say of you, your work, like Penelope's, will never be done, but every day you will have to begin it over again.
"Even some of your friends will in perfect good faith give you suggestions on matters which seem to them important, but which in reality are not so at all.
"One will tell you that you speak too fast, another that you gesticulate too much, a third that you speak too slowly, and don't move enough—one will want quotations, another will dislike them; one will prefer doctrinal, another moral lessons; some one thing, some another.
"They will be like drones who do nothing but disturb the working bees, and who, though they can sting, yet make no honey."
"Well! what is to be done in all this?"
"Why, you must always answer gently, promising to try and correct yourself of your faults whatever they may be, for there is nothing which pleases these counsellors so much as to see that their suggestions are accepted as judicious, and, at least, worthy of consideration. In the meantime go your own way, follow the best of your own character, pay no heed to such criticisms, which are often contradictory one of the other.
"Keep God before your eyes, abandon yourself to the guidance of the spirit of grace, and say often with the Apostle, 'If I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ,' who said of Himself that He was not of this world. Neither, indeed, were His Apostles, for the friendship of the world is enmity with God.
"It is no small matter for a steersman in the midst of a storm to keep the rudder straight. Of little consequence ought it to be to us that we are judged by men. God is our only true judge, and it is He Who sees the secrets of our hearts, and all that is hidden in darkness."
THE HONOUR DUE TO VIRTUE.
Honour is like thyme which the pagans thought ought only to be burnt on the Altar of Virtue. In ancient Rome the Temple of Honour could only be entered through the Temple of Virtue.