ings. When I say do not show this letter, I mean, do not show it indiscriminately. If it is a comfort to you to show it to any special person, pray do so.

[482.]

LXXIX.

Yours, &c.

TO A LADY.

ON THE DEATH OF HER NEW-BORN CHILD.

MY DEAR CHILD,

ANNECY, Dec. 2, 1619.

The Father Confessor of Sainte Claire de Grenoble has just told me that you have been exceedingly ill. .. I can imagine your dear heart accepting all these trials as blessings with a perfect submission to His Divine Will, from Whose Fatherly Hand they come. Oh, how happy that little babe is to have taken flight like an angel to Heaven, almost before it had lighted upon earth! What a precious pledge for you up there, my dear child! But I know well that you have communed not a little with your Saviour, heart to heart. over all this trial; He has before now soothed all shrinking tenderness of your mother's heart

have many a time poured out your chi

His own words, "Even so, Father.

good in Thy Sight." Oh, my d

are most blessed, you are "d Christ, "and your life is hid

I

when He, Who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." So speaks the Holy Ghost in Holy Scripture.

We groan, we suffer, we die with those we love, by reason of our great love for them; and when they suffer and die in our Lord, and we accept their suffering and death for love of Him Who suffered and died for us, we are indeed "dead" with Him and them. These are the true spiritual riches, my dear child, and we shall realise it one day, when for our "present light afflictions" we receive "an eternal weight of glory."

And now, dear child, as you have willingly accepted your illness, because it was God's Will, strive in like manner to accept your recovery cheerfully, inasmuch as He wills you to recover. I cease not to pray, my dear child, that we may all be His without or reserve, in health and in sickness, in

in joy, in life and in death, in time and in 11 best wishes to your very filial

&c.

Col. iii. 3, 4

[486.]

LXXX.

TO MADAME DE CHANTAL.

ANNECY, Dec. 13, 1619.

THE other day, as I made mention of S. Joseph during Mass, I bethought me of his perfect calmness when he found himself, as it seemed, deceived in his espoused wife. And so I commended these good gentlemen and their minds and tongues to him, that if it might be, they may acquire some of his meekness and charity. Then, too, it came upon me how in all that perplexity Our Lady said nothing, made no selfdefence, and was not dismayed, and then God made it all plain; so I commended this present trouble to her, and resolved that I would be silent. One gains nothing by going forth to encounter the winds and the waves, rather one is apt to be covered with foam ! Indeed, my dear Mother, you must not be so sensitive about me. You must be willing to hear me censured; if I do not deserve it for one thing I do for another. The Mother of Him Who deserved nought save infinite adoration did not proffer one word when He was overwhelmed with reproach and shame. "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." Dear Mother, you are too sensitive in what concerns me. Am I

only, of all the world, to be exempt from reproach? I can assure you that nothing in this matter has pained me so much as to see how it pained you. Be calm, and the God of peace will be with you, and will "tread the lion and the adder under His Feet." Nothing will disturb our peace if we are His true servants. My dear Mother, depend upon it there is a great deal of self-love in the wish to be loved by everybody, and esteemed by everybody. . . . Many remembrances to Soeur Marie Anastasie. She is a little Jacobite,1 for the Lord has touched her in His Love, but I trust she will go better along the path of perfection with her lameness than she would have done without it. I salute our new novice, and all who are my dear Sisters and daughters in the Lord..

[490.]

LXXXI.

TO A SUPERIOR OF THE VISITATION.

Dec. 19, 1619.

OH, my dear child, God has been very good to you in recalling your heart to a loving patience towards your neighbour, and in having so mercifully mingled the balm of gentleness with the wine of your zeal ! Alluding to Jacob, when the angel touched him, and he 'went halting."

66

You see I am answering, though somewhat tardily, the letter you wrote, after I had passed through N I write briefly but lovingly to my dear child, whom I have loved, so God willed it, from her cradle.

This was all you needed, my dear child; your zeal was admirable, but it had the fault of being rather sharp, rather bitter, rather excessive. But now all that is purged away, and henceforth it will be a gentle, benignant, gracious, patient, enduring zeal. Contemplate the Holy Babe of Bethlehem, in all His incomparable zeal, how humble, how meek, how loving He is !

Be brave, and be joyful, my dear child, and that in the very depth of your soul, for the angels who announce our Saviour's Birth tell us in their song that there is joy, peace, blessedness, to "all men of good will," in order that all may know that we need nothing to receive Him save good-will, and that even although our good-will has as yet borne no fruit, He came to shower blessings on that good-will, and by degrees He will render it fruitful, so long as we give it up freely to His guidance, as I hope you and I mean to do, my child. So be it. Always wholly yours.