Do you wish to live at peace with all the world? Then practise the maxims
of an influential man, who, when asked, after the Revolution, how he
managed to escape the executioner's axe, replied, "I made myself of no
reputation and kept silence."
Would you live peaceably with the members of your family, above all with
those who exercise a certain control of you? Use the means employed by a
pious woman, who had to live with one of a trying temper, and which she
summed up in the following words:--
"I do everything to please her.
"I fulfil all my duties with a smiling face, never revealing the trouble
it causes me.
"I bear patiently everything that displeases me.
"I consult her on many subjects of which, perhaps, I may be the better
judge."
Would you be at peace with your conscience? Let your Guardian Angel find
you at each moment of the day doing one of these four things which once
formed the rule of a saintly life: (1.) praying; (2.) laboring; (3.)
striving after holiness; (4.) practising patience.
Would you become holy? Try to add to the above actions the following
virtues: method, faith, spiritual combat, perseverance.
Finally, if you would live in an atmosphere of benevolence, make it your
study to be always rendering others service, and never hesitate to ask the
same of them.
In offering help, you make a step towards gaining a friend; in asking it,
you please by this mark of your confidence. The result of this will be a
constant habit of mutual forbearance, and a fear to be disobliging in
matters of greater importance.