As the blacksmith requires a hammer to beat the hard iron and shape it according to his will, so do we need cour­age, the spiritual hammer, with which we overcome the difficulties in the road to virtue and fashion our souls after our divine Model. Without this quality we can no more pur­sue virtue than a blacksmith can work without his hammer. For what virtue is there that can be acquired without effort? Consider them one after another: prayer, fasting, temperance, obedience, poverty of spirit, chastity, humility—and you will find that all present some difficulty springing from self-love, the world, or the devil.