come and tell you the church is on fire.  If he never told you lies, and had no reason for telling you any now, you would believe him—­not because you know of the fire, but because he tells you; but afterwards, when you see the church or read of the fire in the papers, you have proof of what he told you, but you believed it just as firmly when he told you as you do afterwards.  In the same way God tells us His great truths and we believe them; because we know that since God is infinitely true He cannot deceive us or be deceived.  But if afterwards by studying and thinking we find proof that God told us the truth, we do not believe with any greater faith, for we always believed without doubting, and we study chiefly that we may have arguments to prove the truth of God’s revelations to others who do not believe.  Suppose some person was present when your friend came and said the church is burning, and that that person would not believe your friend.  What would you do?  Why, convince him that what your friend said was true by showing him the account of the fire in the papers.  Thus learning does not change our faith, which, as I have said, is not acquired by study, but is infused into our souls by God.  The little boy who hears what God taught, and believes it firmly because God taught it, has as good a faith as his teacher who has studied all the reasons why he should believe.

108 Q. What is hope?  A. Hope is a divine virtue by which we firmly trust that God will give us eternal life and the means to obtain it.

“Eternal”—­that is, everlastings life—­life without end.  “Means”—­that is, His grace, because without God’s grace we cannot do any supernatural thing.

109 Q. What is charity?  A. Charity is a divine virtue by which we love God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.

The virtue of charity makes us “love God,” because He is so good and beautiful, wise and powerful in Himself; therefore for His own sake and without any other consideration.  “Above all things,” in such a way that we would rather lose anything than offend Him.  But someone may say, he thinks he loves his parents more than God.  Well, let us see.  To repeat an example already given, suppose his parents told him to steal, and he knew stealing to be a sin; if he would not steal, that would show, would it not, that he loved God more than his parents, for he would rather offend his parents than God.  That is the kind of love we must have for God; not mere feeling, but the firm belief that God is the best of all, and when we have to choose between offending God and losing something, be it goods or friends, we would rather lose anything than offend God.