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The Imitation of Christ
Thomas à Kempis
The Forty-Second Chapter
PEACE IS NOT TO BE PLACED IN MEN
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
MY CHILD, if you place your peace in any creature because of your own feeling or
for the sake of his company, you will be unsettled and entangled. But if you
have recourse to the ever-living and abiding Truth, you will not grieve if a
friend should die or forsake you. Your love for your friend should be grounded
in Me, and for My sake you should love whoever seems to be good and is very dear
to you in this life. Without Me friendship has no strength and cannot endure.
Love which I do not bind is neither true nor pure.
You ought, therefore, to be so dead to such human affections as to wish as far
as lies within you to be without the fellowship of men. Man draws nearer to God
in proportion as he withdraws farther from all earthly comfort. And he ascends
higher to God as he descends lower into himself and grows more vile in his own
eyes. He who attributes any good to himself hinders God's grace from coming into
his heart, for the grace of the Holy Spirit seeks always the humble heart.
If you knew how to annihilate yourself completely and empty yourself of all
created love, then I should overflow in you with great grace. When you look to
creatures, the sight of the Creator is taken from you. Learn, therefore, to
conquer yourself in all things for the sake of your Maker. Then will you be able
to attain to divine knowledge. But anything, no matter how small, that is loved
and regarded inordinately keeps you back from the highest good and corrupts the
soul.
