LXXXV1I. 

... IN order to be satisfied even with the best people, 
we need to be content with little, and to bear a great 
deal. Even the most perfect people have many imper- 
fections, and we ourselves have no fewer. Our faults 
combined with theirs make mutual toleration a difficult 
matter, but we can only "fulfil the law of Christ" by 
"bearing one another's burdens." 1 There must be a 

1 Gal. vi. 2. 
mutual, loving forbearance. Frequent silence, habitual 
recollection, prayer, self-detachment, giving up all critical 
tendencies, watchfulness to put aside all the idle imagina- 
tions of jealous, fastidious self-love, all these will go far 
to maintain peace and unity. How many troubles we 
might save ourselves thereby ! Happy he who neither 
gives ear to himself nor to the idle talk of others ! 

Be content to lead a quiet life where God has placed 
you. Be obedient, bear your little daily crosses, you 
need them, and it is out of pure mercy God lays them 
on you. The great thing is thoroughly to despise your- 
self, and to be willing that others should despise you, if 
God so will. Feed wholly on Him. S. Augustine says 
that his mother lived only on prayer. Do you the like, 
and die to all else. But we can only live to God by 
continual dying to self.