, 15), "The wicked with all their efforts have not succeeded in that
at which they aimed." St. Paul glories in the fact, and shows that this
is the course which God in mercy always takes. He says (I Cor. iv., 12)
that we endure tribulations, but we are not in agony; we are
impoverished, but not left destitute; we are persecuted, but not
forsaken; cast down, but we perish not; bearing everywhere in our body
the mortification of the Lord Jesus, in order that His life may be
manifested in our mortal bodies. Such being, as we see, the issue which
God has at all times given to the persecutions of His Church, we ought
to take courage, knowing that our forefathers, who were frail men like
ourselves, always had the victory over their enemies by remaining firm
in endurance.
I only touch upon this article briefly to come to the second, which is
more to our purpose, viz., that we ought to take advantage of the
particular examples of the martyrs who have gone before us. These are
not confined to two or three, but are, as the apostle says (Heb. xii., 1),
"So great a cloud of witnesses." By this expression he intimates that
the number is so great that it ought, as it were, completely to engross
our sight.
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