Often turn your eyes toward heaven, and earth will soon lose all its
attractions. Converse frequently with God and you will find it easier
to dispense with the intercourse of men; keep your mind at a remote
distance from all worldly knowledge, and the innocence of your heart
will enjoy sweet repose. Seek not to anticipate by an indiscreet
precipitancy the time when the realities of life shall open out to
your view. Perhaps, more than once you will regret the happiness
which you now enjoy, and which is due both to your knowledge and
ignorance of things.
In reality, you possess by faith the same knowledge that the blessed
have in heaven, that knowledge which has been the object of the
study, research and love of the most renowned minds and of the most
perfect souls in this world. Faith, elevating you above yourself and
all earthly things, leads you to regions to which the most
distinguished genius, joined to the most profound and persevering
study, can never approach. Faith makes you in a certain way the
sister of angels and of men,--of men who have been the most
remarkable on earth for their excellent qualities of head and heart.
Faith associates you with the glorious choirs of heaven, and, when
truly lively and active, will bring you unalloyed felicity and
ineffable joy.
Why should you envy those women, who, for being older than you, have
gained by experience a knowledge of things that you should still
ignore? Why seek to compare their knowledge with that which you
possess? The knowledge that you have obtained by faith has cost your
mind no effort--not a single regret to your heart, no remorse to your
conscience. Every step that you make in this illuminated way recalls
to your mind a sweet and precious souvenir, the pure reflections of
which will be the only light that will dispel the gloom of the trials
and anguish of life. It shall be very different with regard to what
you must learn in time to come. Experience is a severe teacher, whose
lessons are dearly bought; this is clearly and forcibly expressed by
the Holy Ghost saying: "He that adds something to the knowledge
already acquired, adds at the same time new pains to those he already
suffers."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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