XXVI. The superlative Mount of Virtue is formed the reverse of all
other mountains. In the material mountains, the skirts are pleasant,
and the tops all asperity; therefore, in ascending them, the pleasant
part diminishes, and the dreary part augments. On the contrary,
the skirts of the Mount of Virtue are disgusting, and the eminence
grateful. He who would arrive at it, must expect at first setting
out, to meet with nothing but rocks, thorns, and thickets, but as he
advances in his course, the asperity diminishes, and he begins to
discover the pleasant part; and at length, on arriving at the top,
he sees nothing but beautiful flowers, regaling plants, and crystal
fountains.
XXVII. The first passages, are excessively laborious and slippery: _per
insidias iter est, formasque ferarum_; he is courted by the songs of
the syrens, from the sea of the world; he is terrified in some parts
of the mountain, by the roaring of lions. He casts a wishful look on
the smooth surface of the valley, and he contemplates with dread the
top of the mountain, to which he aspires. Freed from the prison of
sin, still, in his passions he wears his fetters, the weight of which,
together with the difficulty of the road, render his progress slow and
toilsome. He hears just behind him, the soft murmurs of his criminal
pleasures, which accost him as they did St. Austin, and say, is it
possible that you can abandon us? _Dimittis de nos_: is it possible
you can take your leave and absent yourself from us for ever? _Et a
momento isto non erimus tecum ultra in æternum._ He however proceeds
on, though a little dejected, and now and then meets a rub in the way,
which causes him to stumble; but now he begins to find the path less
difficult, and the clamours of earthly delights make less impression
on him, because he hears them at a greater distance. Just so St.
Austin experienced it: _Et audiebam eas jam longè minus quam dimidias,
veluti a dorso musitantes._ Having gone a little further, he begins
to discover the road plain and smooth, and although now and then the
force of his antient habits causes him to think of the pleasures he has
enjoyed, and the difficulty of forsaking them, the stroke is so feeble,
that it makes no impression: _Cum diceret mihi consuetudo violenta,
putasne sine istis poteris? sed jam tepidissimè hoc dicebat._
XXVIII. He arrives at last, at the superior part of the mountain,
where he beholds a beautiful, and an agreeable plain. The sweat and
tears with which he watered the skirts, he finds have fertilized the
summit; for here he obtains an abundant harvest, far exceeding what
is produced from cultivation and prolix labour. This is hid from the
eyes of the world, who, instead of considering him as enjoying a happy
retirement at the top of the mountain, conclude, he is placed in an
almost inaccessible and arduous station. They think he cannot enjoy an
instant of repose, imagining the situation he inhabits, to be a field,
where the elements engage with the utmost fury, and where the tempests
rage with the greatest force and rigour. But it fares with him, as with
one who scales the height of Olympus, who afterwards enjoys a climate
of uninterrupted serenity, where the air is not disturbed with the
most slight agitation, and where the tranquillity is so transcendent,
that characters written in ashes exposed to the open air will continue
legible for years together. There you always look down upon the clouds,
and the fulminations burst on the skirts, without ever incommoding the
eminence. At the same time, those who dwell in the neighbouring vales,
conclude, if information or experience has not undeceived them, that it
is ever obscured by gatherings, and continually scorched by the rays of
lightning.
XXIX. Just so the difficulties of life, and the storms of fortune, fall
on those who inhabit the humble vallies of the world, but not upon him
who has ascended the Mount of God; the fat mountain, as David calls
it. But with all this, sickness, grief, loss of goods, persecution,
ignominy, and other calamities, are they not common to the just, and
to the unjust? and are they not in some degree acquired by the first,
by silence, retirement, watching, prayer, discipline, fasting, and
other penalties? It is all true, but these are clouds that are seen at
a distance, and only appear on the sides of Olympus, but never rise to
the top; that is, they never attain the power of inquieting the sublime
part of the soul.
XXX. I do not mean to insinuate, that just men are insensible, for this
would savour of the extravagance of the Stoics, who pretend, that in
the workshops of virtue you may transform men to marble. The virtuous
have their sufferings, but they don’t sit so heavy on them, as they
do on the delinquents, and the inquietudes which they both experience
are felt by the delinquents in their full vigour; by the virtuous only
partially. You may distinguish the spirit of the just man and the
sinner, as you would the elements of air and earth. The earth in all
its regions, is exposed to the injuries of the other elements. The
inferior portion of the air only is so exposed; which is the theatre
of vapours and exhalations; but the sensible alterations, do not reach
what is called the superior region of the air. There the temperature
is observed to be always equal, there the Heavens are displayed in
a constant serenity, and there is always enjoyed an atmosphere,
crystalline and pure.