In a word, it is God alone who
can perfectly teach us.
St. Bernard said, in writing to a pious friend--If you are seeking
less to satisfy a vain curiosity than to get true wisdom, you will
sooner find it in deserts than in books. The silence of the rocks and
the pathless forests will teach you better than the eloquence of the
most gifted men. "All," says St. Augustine, "that we possess of truth
and wisdom is a borrowed good flowing from that fountain for which
we ought to thirst in the fearful desert of this world, that, being
refreshed and invigorated by these dews from heaven, we may not faint
upon the road that conducts us to a better country. Every attempt to
satisfy the cravings of our hearts at other sources only increases
the void. You will be always poor if you do not possess the only true
riches." All light that does not proceed from God is false; it only
dazzles us; it sheds no illumination upon the difficult paths in which
we must walk, along the precipices that are about us.
Our experience and our reflections can not, on all occasions, give us
just and certain rules of conduct.
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