Feeling at one time troubled and perplexed in mind as to the bearing
of these two virtues upon one another, and as to the right manner of
practising each, so that one should never run counter to the other, I
carried my difficulties to our Blessed Father, who settled them at once in
the following words; "We must," he said, "in this matter draw a careful
distinction between persons who occupy positions of dignity and authority,
and have the care of others, and those private individuals who have no one
to look after but themselves. The former must deliver their chastity into
the keeping of their charity; and if that charity is real and true it will
not fail them, but will serve as a strong wall of defence, both without and
within, to their chastity. On the other hand, private individual's will do
better to surrender the guardianship of their charity to their chastity,
and to walk with the greatest circumspection and self-restraint. The reason
of this is that those in authority are obliged by the very nature of their
duties, to expose themselves to the dangers inseparable from occasions: in
which, however, they are assisted by grace, seeing they are not tempting
God by any rashness.
"Contrariwise, those private individuals who expose themselves to danger
without any legitimate excuse run great risk of tempting God and losing His
grace; since it is written that _he that loveth danger_ (still more he that
seeketh it) _shall perish in it_."[1]
[Footnote 1: Eccles. iii. 27]