[Footnote 107: Rom. viii., 28.]
St. Basil was such a man. On one occasion he was called before a magistrate, who said in great anger, "Basil, I will tear out your liver." "Well," was the meek reply, "you will do me a great favor then, for it is a great trouble to me where it is." Such a man is invulnerable.
To come nearer to our own day, I can show you such a man, in our Holy Father Pope Pius IX. What is the invariable testimony, both of Protestants and of Catholics, as to the manner of his receiving them? Every one speaks of his composure, of his cheerful conversation, and of the sweetness of his smile. Now, where is the man in Europe, who has so much care and anxiety upon him as he has? For whom would we be so ready to make excuse, in case we were told that he was found to be reserved, or even at times out of humor, on occasion of those "receptions," which are so numerous and indiscriminate, and which we would think must be so very tiresome to him? At this moment, while Sovereigns and statesmen are threatening him with the seizure of the ancient inheritance of the Church, which is intrusted to his care, and himself with banishment, not only is he calm, but he prophesies that, from these present trials, great glory shall result to the Church. Pius the Ninth is a man who lives in close union with God. Down in the bottom of his soul there reigns a supernatural calm.
With an interior life comes also a strength to do and to suffer, which is naturally quite beyond us.
As our Lord chose his Apostles among a class of men whose natural advantages were very few, in order that his guidance and power might be shown in them, so He has adorned the early Church with a number of young female Martyrs, whose amazing fortitude under the severest torture, clearly proves that He was also the source of their strength. Let me give you an example. St. Potamiena was a Nubian slave of a Roman master. He required her consent to something which was contrary to the law of God. On her refusal, he threatened her with such torture as was exercised upon those who, like herself, had embraced the Christian faith. The magistrate before whom she was brought on the charge of being a Christian, commanded her to obey her master in all things, or she should be cast into the cauldron of boiling oil, which was seething before her. She replied: "I have but one request to make: allow my clothes to remain upon me; then, if you will, let me down by inches into this cauldron, and you will see what strength Jesus Christ, my Lord, will give me to bear its pain." This was the cruel death by which, without a murmur, she won her crown of "Virgin Martyr."
Let me give you another example of fortitude, which you can perhaps better appreciate. Some few years since, in England, there was a young lady of noble family, and of very attractive manners, who became a Religious in a convent near the town where I then resided. To please her father, she had, for several years past, attended the numerous parties that were given among her circle of acquaintance. Her presence was always thought to be a great acquisition. But all the while, her heart was in religion. She longed for the time when her father would yield, and allow her to try her vocation within a convent's walls. At last, he did; but what was his grief when he found that she had chosen one of the most austere orders in the church. She wished to become a Poor Clare. Now, you may not know that a Poor Clare never leaves the walls of her convent; she never sees any one; she walks bare-footed; she uses the painful discipline, and spends many hours of the dead of the night in prayer, while the outer world is asleep. Here, then, was a young girl who had been brought up in luxury, entering at once upon a life of the greatest severity. When I last heard of her, which was a long time after she had entered this convent, she was said to be as merry as a cricket, and the life of her convent, as she had formerly been of her parties of pleasure. Now, how shall we account for such fortitude as this? I will tell you. It was our Lord in her heart, where she had made Him a home, that gave her the courage and strength she needed to comply with his call to her, to be a spouse of his. That became easy to her, which her relatives and friends could not comprehend. There is no one who can do any thing great for God, without this interior life. I will say even more than this; neither she nor any other member of a religious community, can hope to persevere in any well-regulated convent, on any other ground than this. With this, any one, whether in religion or in the world, can trample underfoot the difficulties and trials peculiar to their state of life.
God offers us this interior life, on two conditions. In the first place, we must be in the state of grace. One must first be introduced to a man, before he can become his personal friend. A man in mortal sin is as though he did not know God. He needs to make his acquaintance. He is in a condition that is even worse than that of a stranger; he is God's enemy, and he must be first reconciled.
To drive a locomotive at the rate of forty miles an hour, one must first get it upon the track, before it will move at all.
You, then, my dear brethren, who are so unfortunate as to be in mortal sin—you can take no comfort from any thing that I have said. I have been offering peace to such as lead a Christian life; but what does Holy Scripture say of you? "There is no peace, saith my God, for the wicked."