Turn above, turn below, turn without, turn within, and in all these places you will find the cross. And everywhere of necessity you must hold fast patience if you will have inward peace, and win an everlasting crown.
If you bear the cross cheerfully, it will bear you, and lead you to the desired end, to where there will be an end of suffering; though this will not be here. If you bear it unwillingly, you make a load, and burden yourself the more, and yet notwithstanding you must bear it. If you cast away one cross, without doubt you will find another, and perhaps a heavier one.
Do you think you can escape that which no mortal could ever avoid? Which of the saints in the world was without cross and tribulation? For not even our Lord Jesus Christ was ever one hour without the anguish of His passion, so long as He lived. “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter His glory?” † And why do you seek any other way than this royal way, which is the way of the cross? The whole life of Christ was a cross and martyrdom; and do you seek rest and joy for yourself? You are deceived if you seek any other thing than to suffer tribulations; for the whole of this mortal life is full of miseries,† and signed on every side with crosses. And the higher a person has advanced in the Spirit, the heavier
