{182} Excite within yourself a great desire of heaven, and behold the earth with a proportionable contempt. Were you filled with a proper sense of it, nothing here below could allure or disturb you. "I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear." _Psalm_ xvi. "If the labour terrifies, the reward invites." _St. Bernard_. _Ninth Day_.--On the Presence of God. 1. God at this moment beholds me, as if I were alone in the world; or rather, he is within me as an eye infinitely enlightened, which observes me attentively, and which nothing can escape. He sees me as clearly as he comprehends himself, and with as intense an application, as if he ceased to contemplate himself, in order to study me. 2. Ought I not to be infinitely more ashamed that my sins should appear in his sight, than that they should be exposed to the eyes of the whole world? Would I commit in the presence of a servant, what I dare commit before the King of kings? O what blindness to fear so much the eyes of men, and so little the eyes of God! 3. The most obscure darkness can never conceal me from light itself; the most distant and solitary retreats are always filled with the divine Majesty. Let me shun, as much as I please, the sight and the company of men, I will find God every where. {183} Put yourself in the presence of God, and see whether there may be any thing in you that may offend his eyes. The most powerful remedy against sin, is to say frequently within yourself, "God is looking at me:" there needs no more to restrain you in the greatest violence of temptation. "All things are clear and open to his eyes." _Hebrews_, iv. "If you be determined to commit sin, seek first a place where God will not see you, and then do what you please." _St. Augustine._ _Tenth Day_.--Care of our Salvation. 1. The affair of Salvation is, properly speaking, the only business of man; every other concern, when compared with it, should be accounted as nothing. The enterprises of kings, their negotiations, &c, are as the amusements and the triflings of children. The important and the only affair, therefore, is to serve God, and thereby save our souls: the whole good--the whole perfection of man consists in this. It would be irrational, and therefore degrading to man, to neglect an affair whose consequences are so great, whose success is so uncertain, and whose loss is irreparable. What blindness! what folly! to think only of living, and not to think of living well! to apply so much time to making our fortune, and so little to the saving of our soul! "What doth it avail a man to gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul?" {184}