will of God. A test of whether we are using any creature of God aright might be to ask whether we can, in using it, give God thanks, and ask His blessing upon our use of it. In this way, every creature of God is good. . . if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer' (1 Tim. iv. 4, 5).

3. The third is by abstention or privation; abstaining from the use of pleasant things in the practise of temperance and mortification, or submitting to be deprived of them with patience and resignation.

Of these three ways of using creatures, the first is the highest, the second the most common, the third, which in the state of innocence was so easy and applied to so few things, has become in the present state of fallen nature of extreme necessity, and must be practised by us wellnigh continually. For unless we practise this abstinence and mortification, even in things lawful, we shall certainly fail to use creatures with due moderation, and assuredly we shall be entirely unable to rise from them to the contemplation of God.

Thus it is that we are to use creatures, retaining our selfmastery while we do so, and not becoming in any way or degree enslaved to them. They were created for man, and not man for them. They are for his use and service, and to help him, whether in his use of them, or his abstinence from them, in the prosecution of the end for which he is created.

III

THE RIGHT USE OF CREATURES

After speaking thus of the end of man and of creatures S. Ignatius goes on to draw two practical conclusions.

The first is, that a man ought to make use of creatures just so far as they help him to attain his end, and to withdraw himself from them just so far as they hinder him.

If all creatures have been made for the sake of man, and to help him in the attainment of his end, it is plain that the motive which ought to determine our use of them or our abstention from them, is to be found in the answer to the question: Are they a help towards our end or not? And if we find that any of them are a help towards this end, we ought to make use of them just so far as they are helpful, neither more nor less. On

the other hand, if any of them are a hindrance to the attainment of our end, we ought to abstain from them and renounce them so far as they hinder us, neither more nor less. For in the case of things which are means or instruments the only point we have to consider is whether, and how far, they help towards the end we have in view. If they do not help towards this end they are no longer means, still less if they positively hinder

us.

The application of this principle is of almost infinite extent, and it is impossible to examine our life and actions in the light of it without at once discovering manifold disorders in our conduct. We so often forget or ignore the true order, and put the means in place of the end (cf. Preamble to the Election, p. 125). We consult only our tastes and desires, our likes or our dislikes, and act accordingly. Hence comes a want of due order in our lives, which leads to many imperfections and sins. The mere fact that a thing, or a line of action, is pleasant, or the reverse, is no true reason for embracing it or rejecting it. That which is pleasant may often be an obstacle to our true end that from which we shrink may be the very thing, sometimes indeed the only thing, to help us in attaining it. But so far from acting according to this, which is the only rule of right reason, we too often embrace that which is pleasing to our natural senses and desires, and shun all that is displeasing, without any serious thought of the real tendencies of each, and their bearing upon our end. Here then we may find the cause of many of our sins and failures.

In applying this principle, however, we must bear in mind the different moral and spiritual conditions and aims of those to whom we give the Exercises. It will mean one thing for the man who is just turning to God, and needs to rise out of gross and manifest sins. It will mean something much more searching and exacting for the spiritual man who is seeking to press forward in the way of perfection. For to use or abstain from creatures just so far as they help or hinder us in the prosecution of our end, neither more nor less, is plainly, if taken strictly, a most exacting rule requiring the entire uprooting of all inordinate affections, and the most perfect obedience in all things to the will of God.

IV

INDIFFERENCE

We come lastly to the second practical conclusion, which contains within itself the germ of all that spiritual perfection to which the Exercises are designed to lead us on. If we are to be guided by the above rule, using or abstaining from creatures according as, and just as far as, they help or hinder us in the pursuit of our end, it is necessary that we should make ourselves indifferent to all created things, in all that is left to the liberty of our free-will, and is not forbidden; in such sort that we do not for our part wish for health more than sickness, for wealth more than poverty, for honour more than dishonour, for a long life more than a short one, and so in all other things ; desiring and choosing only that which may lead us more directly to the end for which we were created.

This is the practical and necessary conclusion of all that has gone before, while at the same time it is the means of arriving at that perfection of which we have just spoken. For without this indifference we shall never be able to use creatures aright and in due measure (tanto-quanto). And because by nature we are not indifferent, but heavily biased by passion and selflove, therefore we must make ourselves (harcernos) indifferent. It will require much, and often painful, effort. How great and how painful and protracted an effort we shall never know till we have begun to try. We are not indeed required so to beat down and kill our nature that we do not feel desire for some things and shrinking from others; but we are not to let feelings of this kind determine our choice or our conduct. These must be determined solely by the judgment of reason enlightened by grace, in accordance with this foundation truth of our own end and the end of creatures.

S. Ignatius goes on to enumerate four classes of creatures concerning which and their contraries we are to make ourselves indifferent health and sickness, wealth and poverty, honour and dishonour, a long life or a short one. These perhaps are mentioned because they include so many of the objects to which men are wont to be unduly attached, or from which they naturally shrink. But they are only samples selected out of many others; for the Saint completes the enumeration by an allinclusive phrase, and so in all other things. Among these other

things we may reckon talents and gifts which God gives to some and withholds from others; supernatural gifts also, consolations or desolations; worldly station and rank, dwelling place, occupation, offices, success or failure, the persons with whom we have to live, their character and conduct, all events and circumstances happy or unhappy, in a word all that belongs to our environment and makes up the setting of our lives; and not only those things which touch ourselves personally, but all that affects our relations and friends, their fortunes and experiences, their lives and deaths; all that affects the Church, our country and the world—all these and many more are included among those other things. With regard to all of them, whether they are agreeable or the reverse, we must endeavour to make ourselves indifferent,1 so that we may be able freely to follow the will of God, to act or to suffer, seeking in all things not ourselves, but His glory and love, and eternal happiness with Him in Heaven hereafter.

From all that has been said it will be evident how wide a field for consideration and meditation this Foundation Exercise opens up, and how lofty a perfection it sets before us. And since it so often happens that things which are naturally pleasing to us are really hindrances to the realization of our end, while those that are distasteful and painful lead us more surely to it, how evident is the necessity of self-denial and mortification! Only through the practice of these virtues can we hope to arrive at that indifference which is the proper fruit of this Exercise; for indeed to make ourselves indifferent consists entirely, or at least principally, in the constant effort to mortify, and so to free ourselves from, all inordinate affections.

But however evident these principles and conclusions may be to our reason, so great is the disorder of our passions, and the weakness of our wills, that we shall never have strength to act upon them without the grace of Christ. Our consideration, therefore, of these foundation truths must be accompanied throughout with the fervent prayer, that we may both perceive and know what things' we ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same, through Jesus Christ our Lord' (see Collect, First Sunday after the Epiphany).

1 Always, however, with the limitation: in so far as it is left to the liberty of our free-will to do so, and is not forbidden. See Note 6, p. 29,

THE PARTICULAR EXAMINATION

to be made daily: it includes three times, and an examination of oneself to be made twice.

The first time is the morning: immediately on rising, the man ought to resolve to guard himself carefully against that particular sin or defect which he desires to correct and amend.

The second time is after the midday meal, when he ought to ask of God our Lord that which he desires (1), viz. grace to remember how often he has fallen into that particular sin or defect, and to amend in future; after which let him make the first examination, demanding an account from his soul concerning the particular matter which he desires to correct or amend, reviewing the time elapsed, hour by hour, or period by period, beginning from the time when he rose till the moment of the present examination, and let him mark on the first line of the diagram (p. 46) as many points as there are times when he has fallen into that particular sin or defect; and afterwards let him resolve anew to amend himself until the second examination that he will make.

The third time is after supper, when the second examination will be made in the same way, going through the interval hour by hour from the first examination to the present one, and marking on the second line of the same diagram as many points as there are times he has again fallen into that same particular sin or defect.

(1) That which he desires. These or similar words occur very frequently throughout the Exercises, especially in the second or third prelude of every meditation. S. Ignatius seems to have wished to warn us repeatedly of the need of being definite and earnest in our petitions for the grace we need in each Exercise. The grace we are to ask for here, in making the particular examination, is twofold, (1) light to see our faults and the number of them, (2) grace to amend them for the future. There is probably nothing that more hinders the fruit of this Exercise than a certain hidden trust in the strength of our own resolutions and efforts, which will always disappoint us, unless we rely upon the grace of God.

The matter of our particular examination may be any sin or defect either of commission or omission, especially that which is our besetting sin, or the root and cause of other sins. In the case of those who are more advanced, it may be some virtue which they are seeking to acquire, by making a certain number