which they were plunged, or rather they gain by the efficacy of the cross, the blessedness that arises from detachment. The same stroke that saves him who dies prepares others (whom their sorrows detach from themselves) courageously to work out their salvation.

True it is then, that God is good, tender and compassionate of our real miseries, even when he seems to level his thunder at us, and that we are tempted to complain of his severity. What difference is there now betwen two persons who lived a hundred years ago? one of them survived the other twenty years; but now they are both dead. Their separation, which at that time appeared so long and irksome does not appear so to us now, and was in truth but a short separation. Some regard themselves as if they were immortal, or at least as if they had many years before them. O! the folly of human wisdom. Those we see dying every day, follow close upon those who are already dead. The man who this day sets out on a journey, would not think himself at a great distance from him who set off but two days before him.

The past is but a

Life glides away like a torrent. dream; the present when we think we enjoy it, flies from us, and sinks into the abyss of the past; the future will be of the same nature, and will as rapidly pass by us. The days, the months, the years, like the waves of the sea, flow one after another. In a few moments, in a very few, I say, and all shall be ended. Alas, what now appears so long through tediousness and sorrow, will appear short to us, when it shall have an end! The extreme sensibility of our present troubles proceeds from the weakness of self love. The sick man who cannot

sleep, imagines the night to be endless, yet is that night as short as any other. Our sloth exaggerates all our troubles; they are great it is true, but our delicacy augments them. The true method of abridging them, is courageously to abandon ourselves to God. It is true we suffer, but then it is by the will of God, in order to purify us. The world smiled upon us, and this prosperity poisoned our hearts. Would we spend all our days, even to the dreadful moment of our death, in that softness, that delicacy, that vain joy, that splendour, that triumph of pride, that relish for the world which is at enmity with Jesus Christ, and that distance from the cross, which alone ought to sanctify us. The world will frown upon us, it will ungratefully forget us and cease to acknowledge us. Well, and are we to be surprised that the world continues to be like itself, unjust, deceitful, and perfidious? Yet it is this world

we are not ashamed to love, and that we perhaps wish to love still longer. It is from this abominable world that God would tear us, to deliver us from its cursed slavery, that we may enter into the liberty of detached souls: and this is the thing that afflicts us! If we are so sensible of the indifference of this world which is in itself so contemptible we must be great enemies to ourselves. What! cannot we bear what is so beneficial for us, and must we regret what is so fatal to us?

O my God, thou who seest the foundation of our misery, it is thou alone that canst heal it. Hasten then to bestow on us faith, hope, love, and that christian fortitude, which we want. Grant that we may incessantly look up to thee, O Father Almighty, who givest nothing to thy dear children but what is conducive to their salvation, and to thy son Jesus Christ, who is our

example for suffering. Thou hast, for our sakes, nailed him to the cross: thou hast made him a man of sorrows, to teach us how beneficial sorrows are to us. Let effeminate and slothful nature then be silent at the sight of Jesus, laden with reproaches, and bent down with the weight of his sufferings. Lift up my heart, O my God, give me one like unto thy own, that will harden me against myself, that will fear only to displease thee, or at least will only dread eternal pains, and not those that are as a means to prepare us for thy kingdom. Lord, thou seest the weakness and wretchedness of thy creature who has no resource in himself, every thing fails him, and so much the better, provided thou dost not fail him, and that with confidence he seeks in thee, all that he despairs to find in his own heart.

CHAP. XI.

On Crosses.

ALL that is painful in our way to God, are crosses, which we must patiently bear, and they will be a means of uniting us to him if we suffer them humbly. The things that confound and overwhelm our pride, will do us still more good, than such as animate our virtue.

We have need to be cast down, like St. Paul, at the gates of Damascus, and to be deprived of all resource but in God alone. Nature only inspires a haughty and disdainful courage, and is provoked at those persons that God makes use of in order to humble us. We must bear his crosses in silence, with a humble and peaceful

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courage, being strong in God, but not in ourselves; great through the sweetness of patience, and little through humility. When God, in the humiliations he sends us, wounds us to the quick, so much the better: it is the merciful physician that applies a remedy to those disorders he has a mind to heal: let us be silent, and adore the hand that strikes us : let us not open our mouths but to say, I have well deserved it. Be the cup ever so bitter, we must drink it even to the dregs, as did Jesus Christ. He died even for his murderers, and has taught us to love, bless, and pray for those who are the cause of our sufferings. In the seasons of adversity and temptation, we ought to redouble our prayers. We shall find in the heart of Jesus dying on the cross, all that we want in our own, to engage us to love those whom our pride prompts us to hate. When we love the cross, it is but half a cross, because love softens every thing; and we suffer much because we love little. Happy is he who suffers much, and wretched is he who suffers not with Jesus Christ, for we are come into this world only to be made perfect through sufferings. God tries us by sickness, and by outward subjections, all which we must turn to our advantage. All our crosses are necessary for us. When we suffer much, it is because we have many attachments that should be cut off. resist, we retard the divine operation; we repulse the salutary hand; and thus we have all to begin again: we should suffer less and come off cheaper, did we but deliver ourselves up without reserve to God. Crosses are our daily bread: our soul has every day occasion for a certain portion, in order to detach it from itself, as the body stands in need of a certain quantity of food to nourish it. We stand in need of crosses, and should be destitute of all good, was not God careful to turn the.

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life of this world into bitterness, to detach us from it. The cross is never without its fruit, when we receive it in the spirit of sacrifice. We must accept it, adoring the hand of God, who lays it on us only for our sanctification. Blessed is he who is always ready, and never says, it is too much; who counts not on himself, but on the Almighty; who desires no more consolation than God is willing to give him; and whose nourishment is the pure will of God. There are in crosses so many marks of mercy, and such a plentiful harvest of graces for faithful souls, that if nature is afflicted, faith ought to rejoice. It is in the cross we find peace, by submission and the sacrifice of our purest pleasures. Thus far does God urge a soul to detach it from all that is not himself.

What then is to be done, but to embrace the present cross, and suffer ourselves to be crucified. When he has thoroughly crucified he comforts us, but does not as the creatures do, give us poisonous comforts to nourish the venom of self love: his comforts are pure and solid. The peace that is experienced in submission without any outward alleviation, is a great gift: by this, God, accustoms us to be exercised without being dejected. Though our too slothful and sensible nature should be cast down, our heart remains firm; it is a peace so much the purer as it is barren. The consideration of the rights of God over us his creatures, and that of our own wretchedness, which deserves nothing but humiliations and crosses, is the bread that ought to nourish us in all trials. Let us suffer God to act; men can avail nothing: sometimes when all seems to be lost, all is in reality saved. God is pleased to cast us down, and raise us up again by his hand alone. Happy are they