There

agonies. For several hours I only breathed a long time asunder. Then all on a sudden I recovered. Death flattered me; for I had a great fondness for it; but it only appeared flying off. The father forbid me to rejoice at the prospect of death. I immediately discovered that it was an imperfection, and did it no more; remaining afterwards in the utmost indifference about it. passed so many extraordinary things in this sickness, that it would be impossible for me to relate them. GOD incessantly wrought miracles to relieve me, and give me new strength when I was at extremity. In my pains they treated me wrong. The remedies they gave me augmented them; but I could not make myself uneasy about it. The sisters had much compassion for me; and all were concerned but myself.

SEVERAL times I saw in dreams Father La Mothe raising persecutions against me. Our LORD let me know that this would be the case, and that Father La Combe would forsake me in the time of persecution. This I wrote to him, and it disquieted him greatly; because he thought his heart was united to the will of GOD, and too desirous of serving me, to admit such desertion: And yet it has since been found quite true; though not with his will, but from necessity, having been himself persecuted the first. He was now to preach during Lent, and was so much followed, that people came five leagues, to pass several days there for the benefit of his ministry. I heard he was so sick that he was thought like to die, and prayed to the LORD to restore his health, and enable him to preach to the people, who were longing to hear him. My prayer was heard, and he soon recovered, and resumed his pious labours.

DURING my extraordinary sickness, the Lord gradually taught me that there was another manner of conversing among souls wholly his, than by speech. Thou madest me conceive, oh divine word, that as thou art ever speaking and operating in a soul, though therein thou appearest in profound silence; so there was also a way of communication in thy creatures, in an ineffable silence. I learned then a language which before > had been unknown to me. I gradually perceived, when Father La Combe entered, that I could speak no more; and that there was formed in my soul the same kind of silence towards him, as was formed in it in regard to GOD. I comprehended that God was willing to shew me that men might in this life learn the language of angels. I was gradually reduced to speak to him only in silence. It was then that we understood each other in GOD, after a manner unutterable and all divine. Our hearts spoke to each other, communicating a grace which no words can express. It was like a new country, both for him and for me, but so divine, that I cannot describe it. At first this was done in a manner so perceptible, that is to say, GOD penetrated us with himself in a manner so pure and so sweet, that we passed hours in this profound silence, always communicative, without being able to utter one word. It was in this that we learned, by our own experience, the operations of the heavenly word to reduce souls into unity with itself, and what purity one may arrive at in this life. It was given me to communicate this way to other good souls, but with this difference, that I did nothing but communicate to them the grace with which they were filled, while near me, in this sacred silence, which infused into them an extraordinary strength and grace; but I received

nothing

nothing from them: Whereas with Father La Combe there was a flow and return of communication of grace, which he received from me, and I from him, in the greatest purity.

It was in this that I comprehended the ineffable commerce of the most holy Trinity to all the blessed; and how God, who communicates himself to them, forms in them a flux and reflux of his own divine communications; that the saints of the like degree or hierarchy return to each other these pure and blissful emanations, and further shed them on the inferior hierarchies, and that all are reduced into their first principle, from whence they flow. I saw that we were created to partake in this life the unspeakable happiness of the commerce of the celestial regions, and that it requires us to be very pure to receive GOD thus uninterruptedly, and to leave him to flow back into himself in that same purity. We must indeed be very pure to receive and to communicate the divine Word, and afterwards to diffuse it by a flux and reflux of communication upon the other souls which God gives us. This is what fixes us in the divine unity, in which we are one in him from whom all is derived.

I SAW then this hierarchic order, and these reciprocal communications, among the saints and angels of the same rank; and how this efflux spreads over those of inferior orders, and that with such a plenitude, that they are all filled according to their degree. It is to render the soul capable of these communications, that it needs to be so thoroughly and radically purified; without which it would ever remain selfish, it would always save something alive: and from thence re

P p

tard

L

tard and wholly exclude them. Beside, its ca pacity needs to be extended, which being extremely contracted and bounded by sin, is not in a state, but by the force of fire, and the strokes of the hammer, to be capable of the eternal designs of GOD in its creation.

It was shewn to me how this hierarchic order was even in this life, and that there are souls who communicate to an infinite number of other souls, without knowing it, to whom the grace of their perfection reaches; that this hierarchy will be preserved through all eternity, and that those who naturally communicate to each other will be in the like degree. It was then that I learned the secret of spiritual fruitfulness and maternity; how the holy spirit renders souls fruitful in himself, and that there would be given to me in this way a numberless offspring as well known as unknown. All those who are my true children are drawn in their minds at once to continue in silence when with me; and I have the like tendency to impart to them in silence what GOD gives me for them. In this silence I discover their wants and failings, and communicate to them in an abundant plenitude according to their necessities. When once they have tasted of this manner of communication, any other becomes burthensome to them. As for me, when I make use of speech or the pen with souls, I do it only on account of their weakness, and because either they are not pure enough for the interior communication: or because it is yet needful to use condescension, or for the regulation of outward affairs.

OUR LORD gave me to experience the same communion with the saints in heaven, as with those

those on earth: This is the way to be truly united to the saints in GOD. I felt these communications very inward and very powerful, especially to those with whom one has most of the relation of grace, and to whom one is to be most united in heaven. At first this was more sensible, because our LORD was graciously pleased to instruct me by my experience. It is the way which he has always used toward me. He has enlightened me, not by illustrations, and conclusions resulting from them; but in making me experience the things themselves, he gave me the illumination thereon, and thus a clear sight and sense of what I had experienced. I comprehended also the maternity of the Holy Virgin, and after that manner we partake of it; and how the word of JESUS CHRIST is found very signally realized, when he says, (Matt. xii. 50.) "Whosoever shall do the will

of my Father which is in heaven, the same " is my brother, and sister, and mother." They are truly made mothers, producing him in other souls.

IT was in this ineffable silence, that I com. prehended the manner in which JESUS CHRIST communicated himself to his most familiar friends; and the communication of St. JOHN, when leaning on his LORD's bosom at the supper of the passover. It was not the first time that he had seated himself that way: and it was because he was most proper to receive these communications, being the disciple of love. It was in that great banquet that JESUS CHRIST, as the WORD, flowed into JOHN, and discovered to him his profound mysteries, even how the eternal word operates. For the speech of this word in silence

is