In order to keep ourselves and others in a state of moderation, we
must remember that all persons have some fad, mania, or fixed
ideas which they permit no one to gainsay. If we touch them on
these points, it will be like playing an accompaniment to an
instrument with one string out of tune.

XIV

NINTH CHARACTERISTIC

_Care of the sick and infirm_

CHARITY lavishes care on the sick and infirm, on the old, on
guests and new-comers. It requires that we visit those who are
ill, to cheer and console them, to foresee their wants, and
thereby to spare them the pain or humiliation of asking for
anything.

Bossuet says: "Esteem the sick, love them, respect and honour
them, as being consecrated by the unction of the Cross and marked
with the character of a suffering Jesus."

Charity pays honour to the aged in every respect, coincides with
their sentiments, consults them, forestalls their desires, and
attempts not to reform in them what cannot be reformed. Charity
receives fraternally all guests and new-comers, and makes us treat
them as we would wish to be treated under similar circumstances.
It also causes us to lavish testimonies of affection on those who
are setting out, and warns us to be very careful of saying or
doing anything that may in the least degree offend even the most
susceptible.

Religious must ever feel that they can bless, love, and thank
religion as a good mother. But religion is not an abstract matter;
it is made up of individuals reciprocally bound together in and
for each other.

Alas! how many times are the sick and the old made to consider
themselves as an inconvenient burden, or like a useless piece of
furniture! In reality what are they doing? They pray and do
penance for the community, turn away the scourge of God, draw down
His graces and blessings, merit, perhaps, the grace of
perseverance for several whose vocation is shaking, hand down to
the younger members the traditions and spirit of the institute,
and finally practise, and cause to be practised, a thousand acts
of virtue.

Did our Divine Lord work less efficaciously for the Church when He
hung on the Cross than when He preached? We must, then, do for the
sick and the old who are now bearing their cross what we would
have wished to do for Jesus in His suffering.

XV

TENTH CHARACTERISTIC

_Prayer for living and deceased brethren_

"WE do not remember often enough our dear dead, our departed
brethren," says St. F