For spiritual directors, then, to regard a vocation as something exceeding rare and intricate, to subject the candidate and his conscience to searching and critical analysis, to harassing cross-examination and prolonged tests, as though he were a criminal entertaining a fell project, to endeavor to probe into the secret workings of grace within him, is only to cloud in fatal obscurity an otherwise very simple subject. A high-souled youth or maiden may still be deterred by the thought, "I now see that I have all the necessary qualifications for the higher life, and hence may embrace it if I choose, but I fear it will be too difficult for me to carry the yoke without sensible devotion or consolation." In answer to this, we must remember that a hundredfold in this world and life everlasting in the next are promised to those who leave all to follow Christ. In this hundredfold are included many privileges and favors bestowed by God upon His chosen spouses. Make the effort, overcome nature, decide to embrace God's offer, and you will find yourself overwhelmed by a deluge of spiritual consolations, which God has been withholding from you to try your generosity and courage; you will experience the truth of Christ's words, "My yoke is sweet, and my burden light." Sensible consolations, in fact, nearly always follow the performance of a virtuous act, but seldom do they precede it. A hungry person, before sitting down to table, may feel cross and out of humor, but as soon as he begins to partake of the generous viands a feeling of genial content and satisfaction with all the world steals over him. It would, of course, be an error for any one to think that of his own natural powers he could observe the counsels; since this, being a supernatural work, demands strength above nature. But he who feels helpless of himself, should place his entire trust and confidence in God's grace and assistance, saying, with the Apostle, "I can do all things in him who strengthened me" (Ph. iv: 13). Come, then, to the banquet prepared for you by the great King. Regale yourself with the spiritual viands set before you, and not only will you be strengthened to do God's will, but transported beyond measure with spiritual delights. CHAPTER VII "SUPPOSE I MAKE A MISTAKE?" A young man once exclaimed to a friend, "Suppose I make a mistake! I could not bear the disgrace of leaving a religious order after entering it." Having wrestled with this thought for some time, he finally determined to try the religious life, with the result that after taking the habit, he was too happy to dream of ever laying it aside.