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poverty, snares in honor and snares in dishonor, snares in company and 
snares when a man is alone, snares in adversity and snares in prosperity; 
in fine, every one of a man’s senses, as the eyes, the ears, the tongue, and 
the rest, lay snares in his way. There are so many, in short, of these 
snares, that the prophet Jeremias cries out aloud, saying, “ Snares upon 
you, Oh inhabitants of the earth!” 
Would God hut open our eyes a little, as He did St. Anthony’s, we 
should see all the world full of snares, entangled one in another, and we 
should cry out with him, “Oh, who shall be able to avoid them all ?” 
It is this that threatens daily the destruction of so many souls! 
Ah, dear reader, since this world is full of so many snares and pitfalls 
and precipices, and is burning in the flames of so many vices, shall we, can 
we ever think ourselves secure ? “Can anyone hide fire in his bosom, and 
his garments not burn ? Or can he walk over hot coals and his feet not 
be burnt ?”* 
“He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled with it, and he that hath fel¬ 
lowship with the proud, shall put on pride.”—Eccl. xiii, 1. 
And, what the poet says, too, after St. Augustine, is good advice: 
“Then fly betimes, for only they 
Conquer love, that run away 
— Carew. 
♦rrov. vi: 27, 28. 
