III. Be it ²² now, blessed men, that a prison is grievous even to Christians. We were called to the warfare of the living God, even then when we made our answer according to the words of the Sacrament ²³. No soldier ²⁴ cometh with luxuries to the war, nor goeth forth from his chamber to the field of battle, but from slight tents, unfolded and tied down, wherein are found together every hardship, and every opposite of what is good and pleasant. Even in peace they are already learning by labour and distresses to endure war, by marching under arms, running over the plain, working at the fosse, forming the close 'testudo.' All their doings are made up of toil, lest their bodies and their minds should be terrified in passing from the shade to the sun, from the sun to the open air ²⁵, from the vest to the coat of mail, from |p154 silence to clamour, from rest to tumult. Wherefore do ye, blessed women ²⁶, whatsoever hardship there be in this, account it an exercise of the virtues of your mind and body. Ye are about to undergo a good fight^{27, 28}, wherein the President is the living God; the Trainer the Holy Spirit; the crown, Eternity; the prize, of angelic being ²⁹, the citizenship of the Heavens ³⁰; the glory for ever and ever. Wherefore your Master Christ Jesus, Who hath given you the unction ³¹ of the Spirit, and hath brought you forth unto this wrestling-ground, hath willed, before the day of the contest, to set you apart from a free manner of living unto a severer training, that your powers might be strengthened within yon. For the wrestlers also are set apart for a stricter discipline, that they may have time for building up their strength. They are kept from luxury, from the richer sorts of food, from the pleasanter kinds of drink: they are constrained, harassed, tired: the more they have toiled in their exercises, the more they hope for the victory. And they, saith the Apostle, that they may obtain a corruptible crown. ³² Let us, that are to obtain an eternal one, consider our prison as a wrestling-ground, that, having been daily exercised in all kinds of hardships, we may be brought forth to the course before the judgment-seat; for virtue is built up by hardness, but by softness is destroyed.