Imitation

Fire tries iron, and temptation a just man.  We often know not what we are able to do, but temptations discover what we are.  Still, we must watch, especially in the beginning of temptation; for then the enemy is more the easily overcome, if he be not suffered to enter the door of the mind, but is withstood upon the threshold the very moment he knocks.  Whence a certain one has said "Resist beginnings; all too late the cure."  When ills have gathered strength, by long delay, first there comes from the mind a simple thought; then a strong imagination, afterwards delight, and the evil motion and consent and so, little by little the fiend does gain entrance, when he is not resisted in the beginning.  The longer anyone has been slothful in resisting, so much the weaker he becomes daily in himself, and the enemy, so much the stronger in him.

....Let us then humble our souls under the hand of God in every temptation and tribulation, for the humble in spirit, He will save and exhault.  In temptation and tribulations, it is proved what progress man has made; and there also is great merit, and virtue is made more manifest.


- an exert from "The Imitation of Christ"