Chapter I

It did not consist in the use of extraordinary austerities, such as were practised by St. John the Baptist, whose holiness was so highly extolled by the Saviour Himself. That would not have been a suitable model of imitation for mankind generally. Christ’s sanctity was of course infinitely superior; and it is the pattern on which our virtue must be modeled.

In fact Christ’s private life was not distinguished from the common lives of men by unusual bodily hardships. Millions of men and women in our day, and in civilized lands, toil harder and enjoy fewer material comforts than did the Holy Family. See how hard is the lot of vast numbers of our laboring classes. See them going to their work at early morning, carrying their cold lunches in their baskets, their only support for the toils of the day. Their labor is fatiguing and protracted, often quite exhausting, as is manifested by the bent forms and wasted frames of so many of them. All day they hear rebukes, harsh and gross language; and with their best efforts very many can scarcely earn enough to keep up their strength. And when they return at night, exhausted and begrimed with dirt, they have no comfortable cottage to rest their wearied limbs; only some room in a tenement house, or in a garret or cellar, crowded together with their wives and children, amidst a rude and often vicious crowd of associates. Compared to their life that of the Holy Family was one of decent comfort.