UPON TRUE AND MISTAKEN ZEAL. Zeal was a virtue which Blessed Francis ever regarded with a certain amount of suspicion, "It is," he used to say, "generally speaking, impetuous, and although it strives to exterminate vice by reproving sinners, it is apt, if not guided by moderation and prudence, to produce most disastrous effects. "There is a zeal so bitter and fierce that it pardons nothing, exaggerates the smallest faults, and, like an unskilful physician, only makes the disease of the soul more serious. There is zeal of another kind, which is so lax and weakly tender, that it forgives everything, thinking in so doing to practise charity, which is patient and kind, seeks not her own, and bears all wrongs done to her even joyfully; but such zeal, too, is quite mistaken, for true charity cannot endure without grief any wrong done to God, that is to say, anything contrary to His honour and glory. "True zeal must be accompanied by knowledge and judgment. It pardons certain things, or, at least, winks at them, until the right time and place are come for correcting them; it reproves others when it sees there is hope of amendment, leaving no stone unturned when it thinks there is a possibility of preserving or advancing the glory of God. "It is certain that zeal tempered with gentleness is far more efficacious than that which is turbulent and boisterous. This is why the Prophet, wishing to demonstrate the power of the Messiah to bring the whole universe under the sweet yoke of obedience to Him, does not speak of Him as the Lion of the Tribe of Juda, but as the Lamb, the Ruler of the Earth. The Psalmist says the very same thing in a few words: _Mildness is come upon us, and we shall be corrected._" I was complaining one day to our Saint of injuries which I had suffered through the mistaken zeal of some persons of eminent virtue, and he replied thus: "Do you not know that the best honey is made by the bees which have the sharpest sting?" It is true, indeed, that nothing hurts us so much as wrong done by those on whose support we reckoned, as David knew well when he said: "_For if my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne with it, and if he that hated me had spoken great things against me, I would perhaps have hidden myself from him, but thou, a man of one mind, my guide, and my familiar--who together didst take sweet meats with me: in the house of God we walked with consent._"[1] "Consider," the Saint went on to say, "by whom Jesus Christ was betrayed." Listen to the words spoken by him through the mouth of His Prophet, spoken moreover of His most sacred wounds, "_With these I was wounded in the house of them that loved me._"[2]