ties which through the bounty of our Lord I am enabled to
26G ON CATECHISING. [CHAP. II.
ened and languid address you liave become profitless and distasteful even to yourself, not to speak of the learner whom you have been endeavouring to instruct by your utterance, and the other parties wlio have been present as hearers ; and that you have been constrained by these straits to put upon me the constraint of that love which I owe to you, so that I may not feel it a burdensome thing among all my engagements to write you sometliing on this sul.)ject.
2. As for myself then, if, in the exercise of those capacities which through the bounty of our Lord I am enabled to present, the same Lord requires me to offer any manner of aid to those whom He has made brethren to me, I feel constrained not only by that love and service which is due from me to you on the terms of familiar friendship, but also by that which I owe universally to my mother the Churcli, by no means to refuse the task, but rather to take it up with a prompt and devoted willingness. For the more extensively I desire to see the treasure of the Lord ^ distributed, the more does it become my duty, if I ascertain that the stewards, who are my ftdlowservants, find any difficulty in laying it out, to do all that lies in my power to the end that they may be able to accomplish easily and expeditiously what they sedulously and earnestly aim at.
Chap. u.—ITow it often happens that a discourse trhich gives pleasure to the hearer is dijitasicful to the speaker ; and lohat explanation is to be ojlred of that fact.
3. But as regards the idea thus privately entertained by yourself in such efforts, I would not have you to be disturbed by the consideration that you have often appeared to yourself to be delivering a poor and wearisome discourse. For it may very well be the case that the matter has not so presented itself to the person whom you were trying to instruct, but that what you were uttering seemed to you to be unworthy of the ears of others, simply because it was your own earnest desire that tliere should be something better to listen to. Indeed with me, too, it is almost always the fact that my speech displeases myself. For I am covetous of something better, the possession of wliiuh 1 frequently enjoy witliin me before I
' rccunium Dominicain.