=The Thorn in the Flesh.=--Whence come evil and ugly thoughts which start up in our most beautiful moments, in the hour of devotion, and even in prayer? We wish to ignore them; we have the impression that they come from without. But it is possible that they are born of the habit of letting evil thoughts have free course in silence and solitude. Still it is mysterious that the greater the height to which we have attained by striving, the deeper we fall. And I can testify from my own experience that it is at the very time of renunciation and self-discipline that one is most liable to unclean thoughts and imaginations. St. Anthony and other saints are examples of this. A great sorrow, for instance, the longing for a lost child, is the quickest and best means of burning away the rubbish. But often, alas! on the sorrow there follows a boisterous joy which is not of the noblest kind. Immediately after our noblest moods, when we have been inspired by the most beautiful thoughts and purposes, it is possible in the next moment to feel like a coxcomb. It is not strange that the ancients believed in demons who whisper into one's ear and suggest impure imaginations. Possibly this was St. Paul's thorn in the flesh, which pricked him so that he should not be too much uplifted. =Despair and Grace.=--When in youth one sought to conquer evil desires, and even harmless ones, with the severest scourge provided by religion, and then saw that one could not change one's vices, one let go of the reins and life went as it went. Work was the chief occupation of middle life, and there was no time to think of one's soul. Life itself moulded one's character, and one threw a bone to the dog--the flesh in order to be able to work in peace. Then when in old age we come to reflect, and at sixty find that we have remained very much the same, we wish to begin our spiritual education, but with indifferent success. We had hoped that certain desires would disappear and certain virtues take their place by a kind of natural necessity, as we had believed when young. But, alas! that is not the case. When now we again resume the struggles of our youth the case is thus. We have raised our standard higher, and wish to root out all the weeds. What formerly seemed quite natural--envy of a fellow-worker, revenge on an enemy, pride in success, exultation at a foe's downfall, a small white lie--we now find hateful. And so we begin to struggle against the outward manifestations of these things. But when we find the inner evil just as strong as before, we finally regard ourselves as great hypocrites and are ready to despair. Where is comfort to be found then? Religion only asserts that we are hypocrites, and our fellow-men regard it as a fact. Absolute despair seizes us. What follows then? Grace! It becomes clear to us that everything is grace, and from grace. And that we have been living on the bread of charity which we believed we had earned.