CAMBRAI, Atig. 22, 1708.
…. I EARNESTLY desire that you may be at peace within. You know that peace can only be found in low- liness, and that lowliness is only real so long as we suffer ourselves to be abased under God’s Hand, time after time, as He wills. The means which He most frequently uses are contradiction and blame from others, and our own inward weakness. We must learn to bear both the one and the other, from without and from within. We become really lowly when we are no longer surprised either at receiving censure from others, or at feeling in- corrigible within. Then everything overrules us like little children, and we are willing to be overruled ; we are conscious that others are right, but feel helpless in our- selves to amend. By this time we expect nothing of ourselves, and have no hope save in God ; and then the reproofs of others, however hard or harsh they be, seem less than we deserve ; and if we find them hard to bear, we are more inclined to blame our sensitiveness than to justify ourselves. So that even reproof can scarcely humble us, we are already so lowly. When we feel an inward rebellion against reproof, it shows how urgently we needed it, for indeed no reproof can benefit one unless it cuts to the quick ; so the more we feel it, the more necessary we may conclude it to be.
Forgive me all my freedom, dear Duchess. God knows how much I love you, and how I feel for all your troubles. I beg your pardon if anything I have said seems harsh; do not doubt my affection, and do not think of me in the matter ; look only to God’s Hand, which has used mine as the awkward instrument wherewith to deal you a painful blow. Your pain proves that I have touched the ailing spot Yield to God, submit unreservedly; this alone will give you rest and restore your tone. It is only what you know so well how to say to others. This is a weighty season, a very crisis. What grace will be poured out upon you, if you bear like a little child all that God is doing to humble you and strip you both of self-reliance and self-will ! I intreat you to make yourself so small that you may nowhere be found !
TO LA SGEUR CHARLOTTE DE SAINT-CYPRIEN, CAR- MELITE. DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL ATTRAC- TIONS.Nov. 30.
WHAT will you say, my dear Sister ? I have not had one available moment in which to read your " Life of the Blessed Jean de la Croix," but I hope soon to read it carefully. . . . What I would desire for you, dear Sister, is that you should not trust too much to intellect in your obedience. Do not obey a man because he can argue more forcibly or speak more feelingly than others, but
because he is providentially ordered for you and is your natural superior, or because apart from all else you feel that he more than others is able to help you to conquer your infirmities and attain to self-renunciation. A director is of little use in teaching detachment from self when it is self-will which seeks him. O my dear Sister, how I wish I could teach you true poverty of spirit! Remember what S. Paul says : " We are fools for Christ’s Sake, but ye are wise." J I would fain see in you no wisdom save that of grace, which leads faithful souls in the sure way when they do not yield to temper, their passions, or self- will, or to any merely natural impulse. To such as these all that the world calls talent, taste, and good reasoning is as nought.
CXIX.
TO THE SAME. OX THE SAME SUBJECT.
I CAN only tepeat what I have ventured to say frequently before : Beware of your own intellectual gifts, and those of others ; judge no one according to them. God, the only wise Judge, goes on a very different line ; He gives the preference to children and childlike minds. Read nothing out of mere curiosity, or in order to confirm your own opinions ; rather read with a view to foster a 1 I Cor. iv. 10.
hearty spirit of meekness and submission. Talk little of yourself, and never save as a matter of obedience. Be as frank as a child towards your superiors. Make no count at all of your lights or extraordinary graces. Abide in simple faith, content to be obscure and unremitting in obedience to God’s Commandments and the Evangelical Counsels as set forth in your Rule. Act up to whatever God may make known to you through others, and accept meekly whatever may seem strange to you. Self-forget- fulness should take the shape of crushing out self-will, not of neglecting that watchfulness which is essential to the real love of God. The greater your love, the more jealously you will watch over yourself, so that nothing may creep in unworthy of that love. This, dear Sister, is all I have to say to you : receive it in the same spirit with which I write. I ask our Lord to give you a deeper understanding of these things than anything I can say, and Himself to be all in all to you.
cxx.
TO THE SAME. SICKNESS A TRUE PENITENTIAL EXERCISE.
. . . No one can be more sorry for your sufferings than I am, and I forgive them for hindering you in your penitential exercises. Are not siclcness and pain a con- tinual penitential exercise given us by God, and infinitely better adapted to our needs by His Hand than anything we could choose for ourselves ? What is to be aimed at in any penitential works save mortification of the flesh and submission of the spirit to God ? As to your read- ing, I cannot regret the loss, so long as it pleases God to deprive you of the power to read. All the best books in the world put together cannot teach one so much as the Cross. It is better to be crucified with Jesus Christ than to read His " Sufferings ; " this last is often only an interesting study, or at best an exercise of the affections, whereas the other is the real solid fruit, and carrying out in practice the result of all our prayers and meditations. So go on bearing your pain in silence and tranquillity, dear Sister : no better meditation than union with Christ on His Cross. No one can suffer quietly for the love of God without praying most really and purely. And so you may safely let books alone ; books are only useful in so far as they teach and fit us for this self-sacrificing prayer. You will remember the passage in which S. Augustine, speaking of the final moment of his con- version, says that after having read certain words of S. Paul, ‘‘Xo further would I read, nor needed I ; for a light as it were of security was infused into my heart." ’ When God supplies inward nourishment, we do not need it from without. The word from without is only given in order to supply that which is inward ; and when God tries us by depriving us of that which is external, He makes up for the deficiency by supplying the need, and not leaving us to our own destitution. Be it yours, then, to wait silently and lovingly upon Him. Occupy your mind with whatever His Grace may suggest in medita- tion, to make up for what you cannot have by means of reading. Verily Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of the Father, is a Divine Book of teaching. Sometimes we seek merely to indulge our curiosity in reading, or to gratify our intellect ; and then God weans us from such pleasure by sickness. He trains us by helplessness and a languid incapacity which is very trying and humbling to self-love. But what an excellent lesson ! Where is the book which could teach one so much ?
One thing I do very earnestly intreat of you is honestly to spare your strength, and to receive the alleviations afforded you as you would wish some one else to whose needs you ministered to receive them. Such simple, unaffected conduct will be a greater mortification to you than the austerities you regret, but which are out of the question. Moreover, God is better served by one who, overwhelmed with suffering, is content to be deprived of all consolation, than by those who are absorbed in the most conspicuous works. “To whom will I look, saith the Lord, but to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My Word ? " ’ The one class find their stay in their own lights, their own exertions, their own works, but God carries the other tenderly in His own Arms. Weep as much as you will over the faults which you say God brings to your mind ; I like what you call your stupidity a hundredfold better than your fine intellectual feelings, which are a purely hollow stay. Be content with what God gives you, and that alike in every kind of vicissitude. Once more, take care both of body and mind, for both are exhausted.
GOD loves you, since He is so jealous over you and so watchful in bringing home to you even your smallest faults. When you perceive any fault which indisposes you for prayer, be content to humble yourself under God’s Hand, and accept this interruption of sensible grace as a deserved penance, and then be at rest. Do not seek the pleasure which you get in the society of worthy people who esteem you out of mere self-indulgence, but on the other hand do not give way to scruples about accepting such consolation when Providence sends it. Throw off the excessive keenness with which you hail all such consolations. It will suffice if your will does not yield, and if you are sincerely purposed to do without them all when they are withheld. You want to know what God requires of you in this matter ? I reply, God would have you take what comes, and not run after what does not come. Accept what is given you with sim- plicity, looking only to God, Who thus upholds you in your weakness, and bear in faith the privation of what- ever He takes away to teach you detachment. When you have learnt thus tranquilly to accept all the variable- ness of others towards you, as permitted by God on pur- pose to mould you, you will find that what pleases you will be no disturbance to your prayers, and that priva- tions will not lead to vexation or depression.
Do not give up your fixed times for meditation, morning and evening. They are brief : you will spend them easily, half in weariness and involuntary distrac- tions, half in return to thoughts of God. During the rest of the day let yourself go with the spirit of recollec- tion as you are able, only observing two restrictions one not to let it interfere with your devotional duties, and the other to take care not to tire your head and injure your very fragile health.
Go on trustfully and without fear. Fear narrows the heart, trust expands it : fear is the portion of slaves, trust of children. As to your petty weaknesses, you must accustom yourself to look at them with hearty con- demnation, but without impatience or depression. And with a view to their correction, bring back your heart as often as may be through the day to the calming influ- ences of prayer, and the familiar Presence of God
IT is true that you are too much self-absorbed, too keenly perceptive through a touchy fastidiousness, too ready to be wounded ; but you must bear this inward cross as you would bear external crosses. It is much harder than they are. We suffer far more willingly from the unreasonableness of others than from our own. Pride becomes desperate; it is wounded at being wounded, and the double sting is a double evil. There is but one remedy, namely, to turn our imperfections to account in using them to our own shame and humiliation, to un- deceiving ourselves, and to mistrust of self.
You ought to thank God for making you feel that the necessary work of winning M - is one of your first duties. Renounce all your own repugnances, so as to enable yourself to teach him how to renounce his sin.
You are not mistaken in looking upon me as a sincere and unfailing friend ; but you will raise a hindrance to that grace which should be your one effectual help if you do not give good heed only to seek God in me, only to see His Light as we see the sun’s rays reflected through a dusky fragile glass. You will not find peace either in society or in solitude if you seek for indulgence and consolation to your irritated self-love. At such times, the sulky solitude of pride is even worse than society. If you are truthful and lowly, society will neither con- strain nor irritate you, and you will seek solitude for God’s Sake only.
CIV.GOD loves you, since He is so jealous over you and so watchful in bringing home to you even your smallest faults. When you perceive any fault which indisposes you for prayer, be content to humble yourself under God’s Hand, and accept this interruption of sensible grace as a deserved penance, and then be at rest. Do not seek the pleasure which you get in the society of worthy people who esteem you out of mere self-indulgence, but on the other hand do not give way to scruples about accepting such consolation when Providence sends it. Throw off the excessive keenness with which you hail all such consolations. It will suffice if your will does not yield, and if you are sincerely purposed to do without them all when they are withheld. You want to know what God requires of you in this matter ? I reply, God would have you take what comes, and not run after what does not come. Accept what is given you with sim- plicity, looking only to God, Who thus upholds you in your weakness, and bear in faith the privation of what- ever He takes away to teach you detachment. When you have learnt thus tranquilly to accept all the variable- ness of others towards you, as permitted by God on pur- pose to mould you, you will find that what pleases you will be no disturbance to your prayers, and that priva- tions will not lead to vexation or depression.
Do not give up your fixed times for meditation, morning and evening. They are brief : you will spend them easily, half in weariness and involuntary distrac- tions, half in return to thoughts of God. During the rest of the day let yourself go with the spirit of recollec- tion as you are able, only observing two restrictions one not to let it interfere with your devotional duties, and the other to take care not to tire your head and injure your very fragile health.
Go on trustfully and without fear. Fear narrows the heart, trust expands it : fear is the portion of slaves, trust of children. As to your petty weaknesses, you must accustom yourself to look at them with hearty con- demnation, but without impatience or depression. And with a view to their correction, bring back your heart as often as may be through the day to the calming influ- ences of prayer, and the familiar Presence of God
CV.I QUITE understand that all your troubles come from excessive self-consciousness, and from letting yourself be too much guided by feeling. Directly that you do not find prayer a downright solace to you, you are depressed. Would you be at rest ? then try to be less occupied with yourself, and more with God. Do not dissect and judge yourself, but leave yourself to be judged by the spiritual guide you have chosen. Of course we are sometimes engrossed with ourselves without meaning it, and imagina- tion causes many relapses into this unprofitable occupa- tion ; but I do not ask what is impossible, I shall be content if you are not voluntarily absorbed in self and do not deliberately aim at judging yourself by your own lights. Directly that you find yourself beginning to do this, turn away as from a temptation, and do not let that become intentional which was at first unconscious.
Nevertheless, do not suppose that this course which I advise is intended anywise to interfere with that vigilance over yourself which Jesus Christ teaches in the Gospel. The best possible vigilance is to watch as in God’s Sight against the delusions of self-love. Now, one of the most dangerous ot all these delusions is when we grow senti- mental over ourselves, are perpetually self-engrossed, and feed upon ourselves with a restless, anxious care which withers and disables the heart, keeps us from realising God’s Presence, and ends by hopelessly depressing and discouraging us. Say with S. Paul, " Yea, I judge not mine own self : " ’ you will watch all the better for the real correction of your faults, and the fulfilment of your duties, because of the absence of all this restless self- willed fidgetiness. Then it will be out of love of God that you will simply and quietly repress whatever you see by that clear penetrating light to be faulty and un- worthy of the Beloved; you will work at conquering your failings without impatience or pettishness ; you will tolerate yourself without flattery ; you will accept reproof and be ready to obey. Such a line of conduct tends far more to seif-renunciation than yielding to all the im- patience and vexation and fancies of your own wilful- ness. Moreover, when we attempt to judge ourselves by our own feelings, we take an altogether wrong standard. God only requires that which it is in our power to give, and that happens to be our will. Feeling is not in our own power we can neither win nor lose it as we please. The most hardened sinners have at times better feelings in spite of themselves, and the greatest saints have been horribly tempted by evil feelings which they abhorred, but such feelings have tended to humble, mortify, and 1 I Cor. iv. 3.
purify them. S. Paul tells us that our strength is made perfect in weakness. 1 So it is not feeling but con- sent 3 which makes us guilty.
Why should you suppose God is afar off because you cannot perceive Him ? He is always, you may be sure, near to those whose hearts are blank and sorrowful. No pains of yours will win the conscious sweetness of His Presence. What do you seek to love ? your own pleasure or the Beloved One ? If the first only, then it is your- self, not God, that you seek. People often deceive themselves as to the hidden life, fancying that they are aiming at God, when self-pleasing is their real aim ; and when they cease to find delight or consolation in their religious exercises, they turn from Him in disappoint- ment. Assuredly it is never right to sacrifice that highest delight for the sake of mere earthly pleasures ; but if it fails you, go on in love, and serve God in spite of weari- ness and disappointment. Love is of the purest when not stimulated by reward, and we often make most progress just when we think all is lost ! Love suffer- ing on Calvary is far higher than love glowing with excitement on Mount Tabor.
I don’t care about seeing you a very great or very wise and good woman. I want everything on a small scale. Be a good little child.
1 2 Cor. xii. 9. * " Pas le sentir, mais le consentir.’
CVLDo not be afraid ; you insult God by mistrusting His Goodness ; He knows better than you what you want and are able to bear ; He will never try you beyond your strength. So I repeat it ; fear nothing, O you of little faith ! The experience of your own weakness shows you how little you can reckon on yourself or your best resolutions. Sometimes one might suppose, to see the warmth of one’s feelings, that nothing could throw one back, and .then, after having exclaimed, like S. Peter, " Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee ! " one ends like him by being frightened at a servant maid, and denying our Lord ! Weak indeed we are ! but while such weakness is deplorable, the realisa- tion thereof is most useful if it strips us of all self- reliance. A weakness which we know and which humbles us is worth more than the most angelic good- ness complacently self-appropriated ! So be weak and depressed if God permits it; but at all events be humble, frank, and docile in your depression. Some day you will laugh at all your present fears, and will thank God for all that I say so harshly to drive you out of your timid prudence.
LXXXVI.WHAT a relief it would be only to see those who are really friends in God’s Sight, and to be sheltered from all others ! I could often sigh amid my many engagements after the freedom of solitude, but one must hold on one’s way and work on without heeding inclination. Shun ennui, and let your natural activity find some outlet. See a few persons whose society is not exciting, but who bring you relaxation. One does not want a great deal of society, and it is well to learn not to be too fastidious, enough if we can find some peaceable and tolerably reasonable people. You should read, work, walk when it is fine, and so vary your occupations as not to grow weary of any.
As to your lukewarmness and lack of conscious inward life, I am not surprised at this trial depressing you. Nothing is harder to bear. But it seems to me yon have only two things to do, one of which is to avoid whatever ex- cites and dissipates you, whereby you cut off the source of dangerous distractions, which dry up prayer. You cannot expect to find interior nourishment if you live only for what is exterior. Strict watchfulness in giving up what- ever makes you too eager and impetuous in conversation is an absolute necessity if you would win the spirit of recollection and prayer. No one can have a relish for both God and the world simultaneously, and whatever spirit you have carried about with you through the day’s occupations you will carry to your appointed hours of prayer.
Then, after retrenching whatever superfluities dissipate your mind, you must try very often to renew the Presence of God, even amid those occupations which are right and necessary, guarding against your self-will. Try con- tinually to act by the leadings of grace and in the spirit of self-renunciation. By degrees you will come to it, by frequently checking the rapidity of your lively disposition, and hearkening to God’s Voice within, and letting Him possess you wholly.
LXXXV1I.… IN order to be satisfied even with the best people, we need to be content with little, and to bear a great deal. Even the most perfect people have many imper- fections, and we ourselves have no fewer. Our faults combined with theirs make mutual toleration a difficult matter, but we can only “fulfil the law of Christ” by “bearing one another’s burdens.” 1 There must be a
1 Gal. vi. 2. mutual, loving forbearance. Frequent silence, habitual recollection, prayer, self-detachment, giving up all critical tendencies, watchfulness to put aside all the idle imagina- tions of jealous, fastidious self-love, all these will go far to maintain peace and unity. How many troubles we might save ourselves thereby ! Happy he who neither gives ear to himself nor to the idle talk of others !
Be content to lead a quiet life where God has placed you. Be obedient, bear your little daily crosses, you need them, and it is out of pure mercy God lays them on you. The great thing is thoroughly to despise your- self, and to be willing that others should despise you, if God so will. Feed wholly on Him. S. Augustine says that his mother lived only on prayer. Do you the like, and die to all else. But we can only live to God by continual dying to self.
XCII AM very glad that your retreat has been so satisfactory, and that God gives you so much inward as well as outward peace. I pray that He Who has begun this good work in you may fulfil it to the day of the coming of Christ. It only needs now that you should make use of these peaceful days to grow in recollection. You ought to sing with your whole heart the Amen and Alleluia which re-echo in the Heavenly Jerusalem, this is a token of continual acquiescence in God’s Will, and unreserved sacrifice of yours to His. At the same time you should hearken inwardly to God, with a heart free from all the flattering prejudices of self-love, so that you may faithfully receive His Light as to the veriest trifles which need correction. Directly that He points these out, we must yield without argument or excuse, and give up whatever touches the jealous love of the Bridegroom without reserve. Those who yield in this manner to the Spirit of Grace will see imperfection in their purest deeds, and an inexhaustible fund of refined evil in their hearts. All this leads them in self-abhorrence to cry out that God Alone is good. They strive to correct them- selves calmly and simply, but continuously, stedfastly, and that all the more because their heart is undivided and peaceful They reckon on nothing as of them- selves, and hope only in God ; they give way neither to self-delusion nor laxity. They know that God never fails us, though we so often fail Him. They yield them- selves wholly to grace, and above all things dread any re- sistance thereof. They blame themselves without being discouraged, they bear with themselves while striving to amend.
XCIII.You are good; you want to be better, and you are making great efforts in the details of life ; but I am afraid that you are encroaching rather too much upon the inner life in order to adapt it to the demands of society, and that you are not sufficiently denying the very inmost self. When we fail thoroughly to attack the internal stronghold of self-will concerning those things we love best, and most jealously, I will tell you what ensues : on the one side, great impetuosity, sharpness, and hardness of that same self-will ; on the other hand, a scrupulous notion of sym- metrical rule, which resolves itself into a mere observance of les bienseances. Thus externally comes great restraint, and internally a very lively state of rebellion an alto- gether intolerable struggle.
Try, then, to work a little less from outside, and a little more from within. Take the most keen affections which hold sway in your heart, and place them without condi- tion or reserve in God’s Hands, to be crushed and slain by Him. Resign to Him your natural haughtiness, your worldly wisdom, your pride in the greatness of your house, your dread of disrespect or want of consideration in the world, your sharp severity towards whatever is unseemly. I am less afraid of your temper than of other things : you know and mistrust it; in spite of good resolutions it carries you away, and in consequence it involves humiliation ; and thus it will tend to counteract other and more dan- gerous faults. I should be less grieved to see you pet- tish, cross, brusque, wanting in self-command, and as a result thoroughly ashamed of yourself, than strictly cor- rect and irreprehensible in all externals, but fastidious, haughty, harsh, hard, ready to take offence, self-sufficient. Seek your real strength in prayer. This kind of human strength and rigid observance of detail in which you delight will never cure you. But accustom yourself in God’s Sight, and through experience of your incurable weakness, to compassion and forbearance towards the imperfections of others. Real prayer will soften your heart and make it gentle, pliable, accessible, kindly. Would you like God to be as critical and hard towards you as you often are towards your neighbour ? You are very strict in externals, and very lax inwardly; and while so jealously watchful over exterior graces, you have no scruple in letting things inward languish, or in secret resistance to God. You fear God more than you love Him. You want to pay Him with acts, for which you expect a receipt, instead of giving Him your all unre- servedly. They who give all unreservedly need no accounts. You indulge in certain half-concealed cling- ings to your grandeur, your reputation, your comforts. If you really look into the state of things between God and your soul, you will find that there are certain limits beyond which you refuse to go in offering yourself to Him. People often hover around such reservations, making believe not to see them, for fear of self-reproach, guarding them as the apple of the eye. If one were to break down one of these reservations, you would be touched to the quick, and inexhaustible in your reasons for self-justification, a very sure proof of the life of the evil. The more you shrink from giving up any such reserved point, the more certain it is that it needs to be given up. If you were not fast bound by it, you would not make so many efforts to convince yourself that you are free.
It is but too true that these and the like frailties hinder God’s work in us. We move continually in a vicious circle round self, only thinking of God in connection with ourselves, and making no progress in self-renunciation, lowering of pride, or attaining simplicity. Why is it that the vessel does not make way? Is the wind wanting? Nowise; the Spirit of Grace breathes on it, but the vessel is bound by invisible anchors in the depths of the sea.
The fault is not God’s; it is wholly ours. If we will search thoroughly, we shall soon see the hidden bonds which detain us. That point in which we least mistrust ourselves is precisely that which needs most mistrust.
Do not bargain with God with a vie\f to what will cost you least and bring you in most comfort. Seek only self-denial and the Cross. Love, and live by love alone. Let Love do whatsoever He will to root out self-love. Do not be content to pray morning and evening, but live in prayer all day long ; and just as through the day you digest your meals, so all day long, amid your varying occupations, digest the sustenance of love and truth which you have imbibed in prayer. Let that continual prayer, that life of love, which means death to self, spread out from your fixed seasons of prayer as from a centre over whatever you do. All should become prayer, that is, a loving consciousness of God’s Presence, whether it be social intercourse or business. Such a course as this will insure you real, lasting peace.
I am very glad that you find yourself incapable of continuing the manner of life you have attempted. I should be greatly afraid for you if you felt so steadfast in well-doing that you were confident of perseverence; but I hope everything when I see that you honestly despair of yourself. Oh, how weak we are when we think ourselves strong! how strong in God when we feel our own weakness!
Feeling does not depend on yourself, and love does not depend on feeling. Your will depends on yourself, and that is what God requires of you. Of course action must follow on the will, but God does not often require great things of us. If you regulate your household, keep your affairs in good order, bring up your children, bear your crosses, dispense with the empty pleasures of the world, indulge your pride in nothing, repress your natural haughtiness, strive to become true, naive, lowly–to be silent, recollected, given to the life that is hid with Christ in God–these are the works that please God.
You say that you would rather bear crosses in expiation of your sins, and in token of your love of God. Be content with your actual crosses, and before seeking others try to bear them well; give no heed to your likes and dislikes, keep up a general tone of unreserved dependence on God’s will. This is continual “death unto self.” Refuse nothing to God, and do not go beforehand as to things in which you do not see His will clearly. Everyday will bring its own trials and sacrifices: when God wills you to pass into another state of things He will prepare you unconsciously to yourself.
The only remedy is to renounce self. If we set aside–lose sight of–self, we shall have nothing to lose, to fear, or to consider; and then we shall find that true peace that is given to “men of good will,” i. e. those who have no will except God’s, which has become theirs. Then men will not be able to harm us; they can no longer attack us through hopes or fears, for we shall be ready for everything, and refuse nothing. And this is to be inaccessible, invulnerable to the enemy. Man can only do what God permits, and whatever God permits him to do against us becomes our will, because it is God’s. So doing, we shall store our treasure so high that no human hand can reach to assail it. Our good name may be tarnished, but we consent, knowing that if God humbles us, it is good to be humbled. Friendship fails us: well! it is because the one true Friend is jealous of all others, and sees fit to loosen our ties. We may be worried, inconvenienced, distressed; but it is God, and that is enough. We love the hand that smites; there is peace beneath all our woes, a blessed peace. We will that which is, we desire nothing that is denied us; and the more absolute this self-renunciation, the deeper our peace. Any lingering wishes and clingings disturb it; if every bond were broken, our freedom would be boundless. Let contempt, pain, death, overwhelm me, still I hear Jesus Christ saying, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.” They are powerless indeed; even though they can destroy life, their day is soon over! They can but break the earthen vessel, kill that which voluntarily dies daily. Anticipate somewhat the welcome deliverance, and then the soul will escape from their hands into the bosom of God, where all is unchanging peace and rest.