patience, virtue and energy. And, if happily deceived in your fears,
you find the road which leads to eternity smooth under your feet, you
will at least have the merit of having been wise in your conduct, for
not less moral strength is required to bear the happiness of
prosperity than the misfortune of adversity. Happiness here below is
something so extremely perilous to man's eternal welfare that few can
taste it without injury to their souls. Hence, in order to guard
against its fatal influence, not less preparation, nor less time, nor
less efforts, are required than to suffer the privations imposed by
adversity, for experience proves that the former is more destructive
than the latter to the work of eternal salvation.




CHAPTER II.


ILLUSIONS OF YOUTH, VALUE OF TIME AT THIS PERIOD OF LIFE.

The age of youth is the age of illusions, ardent desires, and
fanciful hopes. Youth is like a fairy whose magical wand evokes the
most graceful images and the most alluring phantoms. This ignorance
of the doleful realities concealed in the future is a gift of divine
goodness which, in order that life might not be too bitter, casts a
beneficent veil over the sorrows that await us; God screens the
future from us to let us enjoy the present. Far be it from me to
remove this veil which renders you such kind service. But, apart from
this screen which the good God has placed between you and the
miseries of this life, there is another of a darker and heavier