where we found only bare walls; though the Bishop of Geneva had assured us that the house was furnished, as undoubtedly he believed it to be. We lodged at the house of the sisters of the charity, who were so kind as to give us their beds.

I was in great pain of mind for my daughter, who visibly fell away. I had a strong desire to place her with the Ursulines at Tonon. My heart was so affected on her behalf, that I could not forbear weeping in secret for her in bed. Next day I said, "I would take my daughter to To

non, and leave her there, till I should see "how we might be accommodated here." They opposed it strongly, after a manner which seemed very hard-hearted as well as ungrateful, seeing she was just worn away to a skeleton. I looked upon the poor child as a victim, whom I had imprudently sacrificed. I wrote to Father LA COMBE, intreating him to come to see me, to consult together thereupon; thinking I could not in conscience keep her in this place any longer. Several days passed without my having any answer. In the mean time I became resign"ed to the will of God, whether to have succour

or not.

Ff

CHAP.

O

CHAP. II.

Like a tide of grace flowing on into the This is a pure and

UR Lord who took pity on the lamentable condition of my daughter, so ordered it, that the Bishop of Geneva wrote to Father La Combe, to come as speedily as possible to see us, and to console us. As soon as I saw that father, I was surprized to feel an interior grace, which I may call COMMUNICATION; and such as I had never had before with any person. It seemed to me that an influence of Grace came from him to me, through the innermost of the soul; and returned from me to him, in such sort that he felt the same effect. it caused a flux and reflux, divine and invisible ocean. holy union, which God alone operates, and which has still subsisted, and even increased betwixt us. It is an union exempt from all weakness, and from all self-interest, which causes those, who are blessed with it, to rejoice in beholding themselves, as well as those beloved, loaden with crosses and afflictions; an union which has no need of the presence of the body; which at certain times absence makes not more absent, nor presence more present; an union unknown to all men but such as are come to experience it: Nor can it ever be experienced but betwixt such souls as are united to GOD. As I never before felt such an union of this sort with any one, it then appeared to me quite new, having never heard of the like. I had no doubt of its being from GOD; so far from turning the mind from him, it tended to draw it more deeply into him. It dissipated

pated all my pains, and established me in the most profound peace,

GOD gave him at first much openness toward

me. He related to me the mercies GOD had shown him, and several extraordinary things, which gave me at first some fear. I suspected some illusion, especially in such things as flatter, in regard to the future; little imagining then, that God would make use of me to draw him from this state, and bring him into that of naked faith. But the grace, which flowed from him into my soul, recovered me from that fear, as I saw it joined with extraordinary humility; and that far from being elevated with the gifts which GOD had liberally conferred on him, or with his own profound learning, no person could have a lower opinion of himself than he had. He told me "As to my daughter, it would be best for "me to take her to Tonon, where he thought she "would be very well situated." And as to myself, after I had mentioned to him my dislike to the manner of life of the new Catholicks, he told me, "that he did not think that it would be my

proper place to be long with them; but that "it would be best for me to stay there, free from "all engagements, till GoD, by the guidance of "his providence, should make known to me "how he would dispose of me, and draw my "mind to the place whither he would have me "to remove. I had already begun to awake regularly at midnight, in order to pray. At this time I awoke with these words suddenly put in my mind, “It is written of me, I will do thy

will, oh my GOD." This was accompanied with the most pure, penetrating, and powerful communication of grace that I had ever experi

enced.

enced. And here I may remark, that though the state of my soul was already permanent in newness of life; yet this new life was not in that immutability in which it has since been. To speak properly, it was a beginning life and a rising day, which goes on increasing unto the full meridian; a day never followed by night; a life which fears death no more, not even in death itself; because he who has suffered the first death, shall no more be hurt of the second. From Midnight I continued on my knees till four o'clock in the morning, in prayer, in a sweet intercourse with GOD, and did the same also the night following.

NEXT day, after prayers, Father La Combe told me, that he had had a very great certainty. that I was a stone which GOD designed for the foundation of some great building. But what that building was he knew no more than I. After whatever manner then it is to be, whether his divine Majesty will make use of me in this life, for some design known to himself only, or will make me one of the stones of the new and heavenly JERUSALEM, it seems to me that such stone cannot be polished, but by the strokes of the hammer; and that our LORD has given to this soul of mine the qualities of the stone, viz. firmness, a resignation, like insensibility, to endure hardness and the operations of his hand.

I CARRIED my little daughter to the Ursulines at Tonon. That poor child took a vast fondness for Father La Combe, saying, "He is a good father, "one from GOD." Here I found a hermit, whom they called Anselm. He was a person of the most extraordinary sanctity, that had appeared for some time. He was from Geneva; and GOD had miraculously

miraculously drawn him from thence, at twelve years of age. He had (with the permission of the Cardinal, at that time Archbishop of Aix in Provence) at nineteen years of age taken the habit of hermit of St. Augustine. He and another lived alone in a little hermitage, where they saw nobody but such as came to visit their chapel. He had lived twelve years in this hermitage, never eating any thing but pulse with salt, and sometimes oil. Three times a week he lived on bread and water. He never drank wine, and generally made but one meal in twenty-four hours. He wore for a shirt a coarse hair cloth, and lodged on the bare ground. He lived in a continual state of prayer, and in the greatest humility. GOD had done by him many signal miracles.

THIS good hermit had a great sense of the designs of GOD on Father La Combe and me. But GOD shewed him at the same time that strange crosses were preparing for us both, and that we were both destined for the aid of souls. I did not find, as I expected, any fit place for my daughter at Tonon. In regard to her, I thought myself like Abraham, when going to sacrifice his son.-Father La Combe, accosting me here, said, "welcome, daughter of Abraham!" I found little encouragement to leave her there, and could still worse keep her with myself, because we had no room; and the little girls, whom they took to make Catholicks, were all mixed with us, and had contracted such habits as were pernicious. To leave her there I thought not right. The language of the country, where scarce any one understood French, and the food, which she could not take, being so far different from ours, were great hardships. All my tenderness for her was awakened,