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The passage from the fourth chapter tells us how He was fitted while on earth for this great office work. While down here He was tempted in all points as we are, apart from sin. From sin within He could never be tempted, for no sin was in Him. He has gone through the trials, the difficulties and sufferings a man who depends on God is subject to while in this world, with the exception of sin.
At the tribunal in Seville alone it is said that in thirty-six years four thousand victims were consigned to the flames, besides the thousands more who endured living deaths by torture, mutilation, and nameless sufferings. Humanity shudders at the recital!
"And would you, could you have passed me, without one word to say my friend, the wife of my father's dearest friend, was so near to me? you who in my childhood so often soothed and tended my sufferings, dearest Mrs.
They held their own in argument, and eventually drew back most of their brethren to the Church of the earlier instructors who had borne the burden and heat of the day, and proved their faith by their sufferings and their works. What those works and sufferings were has already been partly described in the course of this narrative.
"Nevertheless," says he, "hope continued to inspire me, and I held on manfully; sometimes, when visitors called, I entertained them with pleasantry, while I was really sad at heart. . . . Worst of all the sufferings I had to endure, were the mockeries and persecutions of those of my own household, who were so unreasonable as to expect me to execute work without the means of doing so.
It would be idle to say that the soul does not suffer from this change; but these sufferings are just what she requires in order to develop courage, humility, endurance, love, and generosity.
I tried to compare my state with that of old circumnavigators, who sailed exactly over the route which I took from Cape Verde Islands or farther back to this point and beyond, but there was no comparison so far as I had got. Their hardships and romantic escapes those of them who escaped death and worse sufferings did not enter into my experience, sailing all alone around the world.
X. Now you see for yourself that all those who do not at at all times trust God and do not in all their works or sufferings, life and death, trust in His favor, grace and good-will, but seek His favor in other things or in themselves, do not keep this Commandment, and practise real idolatry, even if they were to do the works of all the other Commandments, and in addition had all the prayers, fasting, obedience, patience, chastity, and innocence of all the saints combined.
Then at last, all those who can escape from the condemned city flee for their lives to the hills, while those who must face the torment of the sun and the poison of the air turn pale in their sufferings, feebly curse their fate and then grow listless, weak and irresponsible as over-driven galley slaves, indifferent to everything, work, rest, blows, food, sleep and the hope of release.
The cacique was greatly embarrassed by this demand, knowing the sufferings inflicted on the other parts of the island by the avidity of the Spaniards for gold.
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